Aftermath
by jelpy1
Summary: In the aftermath of the events in Court Martial, Nick starts to suffer from nightmare inducing memories


_**"Take care of your little brother, Jarrod."**_

_He was four-almost five- and walking into his parent's room to see his baby brother for the first time. The memory had that sort of clarity only found in dreams._

_**"Take care of your little brother, Jarrod."**_

_Mother looked exhausted but happy, Father was intently focused on a noisy bundle on the bed as Jarrod Thomas Barkley approached the interloper with a stab of jealousy._

_**"Take care of your little brother, Jarrod."**_

_His mother beckoned him over to her side and gently handed the blanket wrapped infant to her son. He stared into trusting hazel eyes that peered hugely underneath a soft dot of black hair. Tiny fists waved randomly, helplessly, and Jarrod's resentment at the small stranger faded away beneath a growing bubble of delight._

_"His name is Nicholas. Nicholas Jonathon Barkley. He's your little brother."_

_Jarrod pondered the name with the intensity only a precocious four year old could apply._

_"He'll kind of have to grown into that name." He said doubtfully._

_Victoria laughed._

_"He will if we help him." Her gaze fastened on her firstborn. "You know he's going to need you as he grows up. He's probably going to want to follow you everywhere and do what you do. That makes him your responsibility."_

_Jarrod's eyes widened._

_"Really?"_

_"Really." She nodded._

_A fierce protectiveness towards the baby in his arms made Jarrod stand up straighter while Victoria watched with pride._

_"Take care of your little brother, Jarrod."_

The dream came back several times that night, and when he woke up in the morning, Jarrod could remember the dream but had no idea why he'd had it.

BVBVBVBVBVBVBVBVBVBVBVBV

At the far end of the hall, Nicholas Jonathon Barkley was dreaming too; only in his dreams the children were dying.

_It was Mayville, and smoke and blood and insanity were assaulting his senses. Burning his eyes, echoing in his ears, the stench filling his lungs and turning his dinner into foul tasting vomit. He was stumbling through the streets trying to stop something terrible from happening but knowing he would fail. There was a flapping roar overhead and a dark figure glided by; laughing, taunting, jeering, mocking his clumsy attempts to run through the bloody mud. Leathery wings flapped out of reach, turning a corner. The boy officer heard the gunshots and staggered onward, knowing he was already too late._

_**The children were dying**_

_A malignant shadow capered and danced and fired army bullets into tiny skulls while he did nothing to stop it; struck dumb with horror._

_**The children were dying**_

_The young Lt raised his pistol and fired uselessly at the dark howling madness that was death, the boy only now feeling spatters of blood on his face, burning streaks of scarlet and he didn't know if the crimson liquid came from the red rain that was falling from the sky or the slaughtered babies at his feet._

_**The children were dying and it was all his fault**_

"Nick!"

Hot hands, holding him down, a face blurred in the night as his mind struggled to piece things together. He was at war..he was at home...

"Nick, it's a dream."

He felt the warmth of blood spatters on his face and wondered where he was. He was in _{Mayville}_ Stockton and he was _{Lt}_ Nick Barkley.

"Come on, wake up...It's just a dream."

The face above him was had _{brown}_ blue eyes and wavy _{red}_ blond hair. It was _{bobbybats}_ Heath. He could put a name to the face. Heath Barkley his younger brother, and that meant this was Stockton California. Nick felt liquid on his face and had a moment of terrifying disorientation _{if this is home then why do i have blood on my face?}_ He brushed his fingers against the liquid and they gleamed wetly, clearly in the moonlight. Not blood, sweat. Or maybe tears.

The hands gripping his shoulders released him and he heard Heath fumbling at the bedside light. Somehow the faded light from the lamp made the room seem smaller, more threatening.

Heath eased himself on the side of the bed, watching Nick rub his palms over his eyes.

"You had that dream again, didn't you?" Heath's voice was flat, tired.

Well it should be. Nick had awakened him every night for a week now with the same nightmare, and being jerked out of bed by a brother's screams was not the way to acquire beauty rest. Then again, he had it easy; he could just go back to sleep soon. Heath suspected Nick would stay stubbornly awake until dawn, as he apparently had done every other night judging from his hollowed eyes. "Do you remember it this time?"

A sigh. "No."

"Do you remember anything about it?"

A shake of the head. "Only that it was about Mayville."

A wave of exhausted concern made Heath decide on the direct approach.

"Nick, you need help."

"From who? A Doctor?"

Right. Tell a Doctor about the nightmares, the smell of gunpowder that wouldn't go away and the faint sound of a baby's cry that was following him everywhere. Any self respecting quack would toss him in a madhouse. Maybe that's what he deserved.

"I don't want to talk to a Doctor."

"The family." Heath pressed.

Another obstinate shake of the head.

"Nick you have to do something!"

"I don't have to do any Go-" he bit off a curse, "I don't need any help."

"This is eating you alive-"

"I'm fine."

"At least let me tell Jarrod."

"NO!" Nick slid over to the opposite side of the bed his shoulders tight with tension. "The last person I want to talk to about this is Jarrod."

Heath nodded. Nick's work lately had gotten him out of the house before dawn and brought him back long after dinner. Heath had figured that it wasn't just coincidence.

"Jarrod thinks you agree with what happened. He thinks you've forgiven him."

"Of course I have." Nick growled. "How could I be angry at Jarrod? I mean, what he did he was doing for the country, for justice and truth and all those things that are important to him."

"More important than you?" Heath's dry question stabbed deeper than intended and Nick winced.

"I didn't say that." Nick tugged unhappily at his hair as he had when he was a boy.

Heath could almost see waves of uncertainty coming off his brother. "You just believe that it's true."

"I don't know. I just...I don't know. I don't know anything lately, Heath."

Nick felt dragged down with fatigue and words he hadn't intended to say spilled out.

"In the last coupla days I haven't even been sure where I am half of the time. I'll be doing something and all the sudden I wonder what I'm doing here when I have a Staff Meeting the General is expecting me at. One of the hands will ask me a question and I'll start to ask why he's out of uniform before I realize I'm at the ranch."

Nick looked up, and Heath could see dialated pupils, nervous sweat.

"I keep seeing snipers, smelling smoke. Then I turn around and there's nothing there. There's no one."

The hand tugging on his bangs were shaking and Nick laced his fingers together in his lap, willing them to be still.

"He's falling apart." Heath thought miserably.

Nick, the rock, the unassailable one, the force of nature forever in motion was falling apart and Heath felt helpless to slow the process. He chewed over his options for a moment. Tell a doctor? Nice plan but Heath didn't think whatever was wrong with Nick was physical. Tell Mother? Heath had a firm belief that Victoria could handle anything. But to tell her was to tell Jarrod and Nick had already said he didn't want to do that.

"Can't say's I blame him." An angry section of his mind suggested. "It was Jarrod's little 'court martial' that set this off. And since Mother and Audra are both convinced Jarrod did the right thing, that leaves Nick the odd man out. Funny how often that happens when Nick and Jarrod quarrel."

Heath tried to brush off the thought as unworthy but couldn't quite do so. He loved Jarrod, admired him and respected his passion for truth. But there were moments, and this was one of them, that he felt that Jarrod's "truth" had come at Nick's expense. And because Jarrod's intentions were genuinely noble, an angry response from Nick brought the wrath of the rest of the family down on his head.

In Heath's opinion, the whole 'court martial' farce had rested on taking advantage Nick's relationship with General Alderson without Nick's knowledge or consent. When Nick showed up unexpectedly Jarrod could have- and to Heath's mind should have- called the whole thing off. He didn't, and Nick had been tied up, threatened with hanging, emotionally battered...and found that it an elaborate practical joke . His trusted older brother had used him and everyone around him seemed to approve whole heartedly. No wonder he was confused.

Nick was still rambling disjointedly.

"And Jarrod was...He was working with the government and ... he was right. You heard Mother and Audra talking about how proud they are of him. I mean he .. he uncovered one of the men who assassinated Lincoln. I'm proud of him. I should be proud of him, not angry. It just..." His voice stumbled uncertainly. "I must be wrong. IF I was angry at him I'd be wrong. He's the brainy one, ya know?"

Heath had heard that phrase more than once from Nick. As always, it irritated him. Maybe it had been a family joke at some point but Heath didn't find it funny.

"Look Nick, why don't you at least talk to Mother? "

A shake of the shaggy head.

"You have to talk to somebody!"

Nick stared blankly out the window for a moment and an idea straggled to the surface.

"The General. I need to talk to General Alderson. That's where it all started."

Heath eyed him doubtfully.

"That's at least twelve hours ride away."

Nick pulled himself off the bed and began dragging on his clothes.

"Then I'd better get moving."

"You probably aren't his favorite person in the world." Heath pointed out. "He might not want to talk to you even IF they let you see him."

Nick pulled on a shirt without answering.

"Nick, I don't think this is a good idea."

Nick searched wearily for his boots. "It's the only one I have."

Heath watched him silently, wanting to stop his brother; not certain he should.

"Nick.."

His brother paused in the doorway and turned haunted eyes on Heath.

"Will you at least let me talk to the family for you? To Jarrod?"

Nick rested his head on the doorjamb for a moment.

"Yeah sure. Do what you want; talk to him. If anyone can figure this out, it's Pappy. He's the smart one."

Nick walked out the door leaving Heath with a question that had been troubling him for awhile. If Jarrod was the smart brother, what did that make Nick?

BVBVBVBVBVBVBVBV

Heath could hear the murmur of voices in the dining room before he slipped in, Nick's seat glaringly empty to his eyes. There was a small envelope next to Jarrod's coffee and dismay on Victoria's face as Heath came in alone.

"Don't tell me Nick has already headed out for the day?"

"He had an errand he wanted to run."

Victoria had not raised four children without learning to recognize an evasion when she heard one.

"I don't think I've even seen him in the last week. I'm fairly certain he still lives here since I've seen signs that his bed has been slept in but I haven't seen so much as Nick's shadow lately. Jarrod-"

Blue eyes met hers with an abstracted look. Obviously Jarrod hadn't heard a word of the conversation.

Victoria withheld a sigh of exasperation as she realized Jarrod was so deep in thought over something that he was scarcely aware of his surroundings.

"I'm sorry Mother, I wasn't really listening." Jarrod looked contritely at her. "I was trying to figure out how to respond to this." His finger flicked the opened envelope by his plate.

"What is it?" Audra asked.

"A letter from the defense department." A slightly embarrassed look crossed his face. "It seems they want to give me some kind of commendation."

Heath was dumbfounded. A commendation? They talk him into terrifying his family and using his brother and they think that deserves a commendation? Lovely.

"Oh Jarrod that's wonderful!" Audra responded excitedly. "Is it going to be a medal? Will there be a ceremony?"

"Audra please; Jarrod dear what does it say?"

"Just bureaucratic babbling mostly. I'm not really sure what to tell them."

"Tell them 'YES'! Oh we're so proud of you!" Audra was bubbling with delight.

Jarrod shook his head. "Audra I'm a civilian; I'm not even sure they CAN give me a medal." He returned to his breakfast with a bemused smile.

Heath angrily blinked back a memory of Nick wiping away sweat and tears and pushed the chair back with a scraping sound. Better to leave before he said something he regretted. Jarrod was so engrossed in how to answer the letter that he didn't even notice.

_**BVBVBVBVBVBVBV**_

**Tic...Tic...Tic**

It was funny how such a small room could still echo each sound so ominously. Then again there wasn't any other noise to fill up the empty air. Three people sweating was fairly noiseless.

**schnikt**

The bullet slid into the chamber and the barrell closed with a click. The gun barrel was spun and slowed down, eventually stopping, though on an empty chamber or a full one he had no way of knowing. The pistol slid across the table to his hand.

"Pick it up."

The voice was full of hatred and contempt, a sleet thin cover for madness. He hesitated and the only other pistol in the room was cocked.

"Pick. It. Up. Or I'll kill the guard now. "

He could feel two sets of eyes on him. Dead green ones and terrified brown ones. His own hazel eyes sought out the gun pressed to the private's temple, could see a finger tightening on the trigger a bit at a time. Anything he did aside from follow the orders he was given would get the boy killed. He picked up the gun.

"Now here's what we're going to do." The voice was calm, soft, even reasonable. "You put the gun under your chin and pull the trigger. If it doesn't go off... " A skull like smile. "then you point it at my head and pull the trigger. If we're both still here, then you spin the barrel and we play again."

_Christ he's insane I shouldn't have come here_

"No." he said defiantly. "I'm not doing this. Even if I blew your head off, you'd still fire the gun just by reflex and kill that kid."

The smile got tighter, wider and he could see the uncalloused finger applying a little more tension on the trigger. The guard started shaking as the acidic odor of urine filled the air and he could see the boy mutely begging him to go along. Yellow teeth, old and canine gleamed at him hatefully.

"A rock and a hard place, eh? If you refuse the boy's dead. If you kill me the boy's dead. I guess all you can do is hope that the only person you kill in this room is yourself. Now I'm going to count to three."

**drip**

Sweat spattered on the floor.

"One..."

_Options Think There has to be another option._

"Two..."

Brown eyes were tearing up in terror, silently calling for help. He lost his breath as he recognized the look, remembered what had happened.

_flames leaping in the darkness wailing voices being lost in the crackle and roar of the burning house two sets of eyes watching him in fear and panic in the instant before he heard the shots_

"Three..."

There was only a second to decide. Nick Barkley pressed the gun beneath his chin and pulled the trigger.

_**BVBVBVBVBVBVBVBVBVBVBVBVBVBVBVBV**_

"...ggering devices, barbed wire, soap ..."

Heath checked off the items on the purchasing list mechanically, his mind on his troubled brother. Nick's erratic behavior lately had set off a memory Heath couldn't quite pin down. The nightmares, the shaking, the moments of disorientation when he couldn't remember where he was. Heath had seen it before somewhere else but couldn't recall the specifics. He was deliberately NOT thinking about it - no small feat- in the hope the facts would pop up of their own volition.

He focused on adding the figures together, wishing that he had Nick's wizard like ability to glance at the list and tell instantly if the total was off by so much as a cent. The storekeeper had once joked that Nick could tell if a bill was correct just by weighing it in his hand. The total seemed accurate and he scribbled his signature on the bottom of the receipt and left the store.

"Ho, Heath!" Jarrod's baritone greeted him as he hit the sidewalk "Just arriving in town?"

"Nope. Just leaving."

"You weren't even going to drop by and say 'Hello'? There was an air of mock indignance to Jarrod's voice as he gently teased his brother before focusing on the loaded wagons. "My Lord, that's a lot of feed."

Heath was getting the disquieting feeling that if he waited until Jarrod realized Nick was having problems, the topic wouldn't come up for weeks.

"Jarrod, we need to talk about Nick."

"I'll say we do. What's he thinking of, buying that much grain out of season?"

Heath tamped down on his temper. "The market was glutted and this stuff was a bargain. It'll keep forever and we can always use more grain. Uh..Nick..."

"Well, he's got enough there so we can go into the grain business ourselves."

"He knows what he's doing." Heath's response came out sharply but Jarrod didn't notice. "Look, Nick isn't-"

"He's better know what he's doing as much grain as he bought. He's not taking that old weather faker's advice about how there's going to be a drought this year is he?"

"I don't know Jarrod. You'd have to talk to him about it" That sense of bubbling frustration was back as Heath realized Jarrod was only partially paying attention to him. "You ought ta talk to him about a lotta things."

"Huh?" Jarrod dragged his attention away from the loaded wagons. "I'm sorry, you were saying? It's past lunch time; are you hungry?"

Heath could feel the muscles of his jaw tightening in anger.

"No." The answer was cold, abrupt and angry and Jarrod stared at Heath, genuinely startled at the obvious fury Heath was reigning in.

"Heath?"

Heath climbed up on the wagon without a word and slapped the reins down on the horses. He could feel Jarrod's puzzled gaze on his back as he drove away.

To hell with him.

_**BVBVBVBVBVBVBV**_

It was a harvest moon.

_'Nothin' like a harvest moon tae light ye up as a snipers target.'_

It was one of the first warnings he had gotten from Jock, who had seen him heading out of the camp's perimeters for a smoke. The Colonel had simply yanked him off his feet a second before a bullet had passed overhead.

_'Keep yer eyes on yer arse and yer head outter it an mebbe you come outter this alive, eh boyo?'_

He hated riding on an open road under a full moon but he needed to get home and it was the quickest way. He felt like a big fat stupid target out here, a reaction he thought he had shaken off around 2 years after the war was over. Or maybe the war had never been over.

Hazel eyes clouded with exhaustion started to close and he forced them open with an effort. How long since he'd had a full night of sleep, he wondered. seven days now? Was it seven days or eight? His mind backtracked...he'd led the night patrol last night and taken some green troops out the night before. Plus there was a staff meeting he'd had to attend...but then he didn't have to attend any more since after all the general was now dead in the guardhouse...The guardhouse? A wave of disorientation so intense it made him dizzy washed over him and he stopped his horse trying to figure out where he was.

No war now. The war was over for years...so why was he thinking it wasn't? He slapped absently at the mosquito that buzzed by sounding like the fly that had buzzed over the dead guard.

Oh yeah that was right. The guard was dead as was General Alderson and it was all his fault.

He wondered why he cared so little and felt a mild tremor shake his body. The first time he'd killed a man was on his third patrol. Everyone had congratulated his marksmanship. The captain had given him a nod. The veterans a slap on the back. He'd accepted the praise with bravado, then went into his tent to collapse on his cot where he shook so badly he couldn't even walk for an hour. Now all he felt was a slight shiver and he wondered if that change was good or bad.

His horse snorted and tossed its head impatiently and Nick realized he had been sitting in the saddle staring in space, for how long he had no idea. Cocoa snorted again and the steam from the nostrils floated past like smoke from a burning building.

_the woman screaming as she ran with her children. The uncomprehending terrified eyes of the toddlers looking around._

Nick blinked again and it was all gone. There was nothing there but himself, stupidly sitting on a horse under a full moon, staring down at a road where water seeped up through the coils of mud _(like blood seeping through a bullet shattered brain)_ his memory supplied, and he stumbled off his horse, fell to his knees in the road and heaved until his stomach was long past empty.

_**BVBVBVBVBVBVBV**_

Victoria Barkley's boys each had their own way of getting angry. Nick's was generally to vent; Jarrod's was to retreat to icy formality, and Heath's to completely withdraw from the person he was angry at, not wanting to do anything to aggravate his temper. He was doing that tonight, pulling away from Jarrod and by extension, Victoria and Audra. It was obvious even to Audra in her most bubbly state, that things in the family were askew. Nick was gone for the eighth day in the row, an absence that troubled his mother but had been only vaguely noticed by Jarrod, who was concentrating solely on Heath.

_'He fusses over Heath too much.'_ The thought surprised her and she stopped to examine it a bit closer. _'It's true. He worries about Heath more than he should. He always has, ever since Heath arrived.._

Why was that? Because, at the time it was needed. Heath was very unsure and Nick was too absorbed with the cattle drive they were planning to prop Heath up at the time. She remembered that clearly. Jarrod had been annoyed with Nick for rehiring someone Heath had just fired, and Nick had bluntly told Jarrod that the herd came first. That was Nick's main concern. It had to be since he was responsible for not only the Barkley's herd but the herds of two other ranchers. He treated Heath like anyone else who was working on the drive.

In the long run, Nick's unsentimental approach did far more for Heath than Jarrod's coddling. When Nick essentially made Heath his co-foreman there had been grumbling about taking orders from someone who wasn't a 'real Barkley' But there were no complaints about favoritism. Everyone knew that Nick wouldn't stand for anyone who was incompetent touching his precious cattle.

Jarrod was a different matter. He had been determined to prove something - Victoria didn't know what - to Heath. Maybe Jarrod was ashamed of what Tom did. Maybe he had decided that he personally would make Heath feel welcome. He had always been there ready to listen to whatever Heath had to say, always willing to help out, always trying to fill Heath in on the family history.

Nick had once spent a Sunday morning observing Jarrod telling Heath about various Aunts, Uncles, and cousins before bluntly asking Jarrod if he was going to test Heath over it that night. Jarrod had scowled, Heath had laughed and Nick had invited his brothers to go fishing that afternoon, which they did. It had been the first sign that Nick and Heath were becoming close. Jarrod had never really stopped worrying about Heath though, sometimes to the point of condescension.

Nick, on the other hand, had the most trouble getting around the idea of adding Heath to the family, but once he had he'd simply accepted Heath to the point of occasionally reminiscing about some long ago happening as if Heath had been there with him.

Victoria could recall Nick once talking about a long ago picnic and asking Heath if he remembered the really great peach cobbler someone had made.

"No." Heath answered.

"How could you forget that cobbler?" Nick had been genuinely indignant.

"I didn't forget it, I just never tasted it. I wasn't here at the time, remember?" Heath seemed more amused than annoyed.

"Oh." For a moment Nick was completely taken aback. Then: "Remember the best cobbler you ever ate?"

"Yep."

"It was better than that. So when we went swimming later..."

Nick's habit of essentially including Heath in his childhood memories had struck Victoria as both scatterbrained and touching, and fortunately Heath saw it the same way. Heath and Nick had fallen into a comfortable easy relationship with remarkable speed. Jarrod on the other had, still tended to be very careful with Heath's feelings.

In fact, he focused so much on Heath that he seemed to be ignoring Nick in some ways. When there was a problem with Nick and Heath, Jarrod would be first concerned with whether or not they were physically alright, then how Heath was handling the aftermath. What Nick wanted or needed seemed to drop out of Jarrod's consciousness. It wasn't that Jarrod cared less for Nick, just that he seemed to be assuming Nick would come to his older brother if he was upset. That was fine with small problems but with large problems it wouldn't work.

Victoria reflected that Jarrod had forgotten Nick's tendency to try to deal with troubles entirely on his own; like when he had been bitten by a rabid wolf and kept it a secret from the family. When something was really wrong, Nick wouldn't talk about it until Jarrod sat down with him and found out what was going on. And since Heath arrived Jarrod hadn't been as attentive to Nick, who often needed Jarrod as a surrogate Father. The fact that Nick called his brother Pappy was not accident. Jarrod had had practically raised Nick for months at a time when Tom was off on business.

_'I wonder if Nick ever feels like he gained one brother and lost another?'_

Victoria's thoughts kept her occupied during the strained supper conversation that finally left even Audra unable to fill the silences. Silas gathered the dishes together and took them into the kitchen and the sense of tension got noticeably heavier. Jarrod, puzzled and confused over what was troubling Heath, decided he wasn't getting anywhere with his delicate probing questions.

"Heath, something's been bothering you all day, and since I seem to be part of the problem, why don't you just tell me what it is?"

Heath took a deep breath. "Where's your brother, Jarrod?"

"What?" Jarrod plainly had no idea what Heath was talking about.

"Where's your brother? Your brother, Nick. You know, he's about six feet tall, black hair, hazel eyes? You court martialed him last week, remember? I do. I thought they were going to hang him. That's what Nick thought, too."

"That's what this is about?" Jarrod was relieved it was something so simple. "Heath, Nick and I already talked about it. I explained everything and he's fine."

"He's not FINE Jarrod!" Heath repressed an urge to shake his older brother. "If he was FINE he wouldn't have left in the middle of the night to make a 12 hour ride to where Alderson is being held so he can talk to the man. If he was FINE he wouldn't be having nightmares that are so bad that he wakes up screaming every SINGLE night. If he was FINE" Heath lost his breath and finished more quietly than he intended. "He wouldn't be falling apart."

"Falling apart? Nick?" Jarrod was staggered at the information Heath revealed so harshly.

"Yes Nick, every night since Alderson was here. That court martial shook him up, Jarrod and he hasn't been the same since. I don't think he's been getting more than two hours of sleep a night. Once he has the nightmare he won't go back to sleep; he's afraid to. He said he's having other problems too."

"What kind of problems?" Audra sounded timid and shaken at the thought of her protector waking up screaming. Nick just didn't do that. When he was six once he'd had a nightmare about monsters while he was suffering from a fever. When he woke up and mistook his father for the monster of his dreams, he had promptly conked Thomas Barkley over the head with bowl of water. Screaming with fear was not Nick's usual way of handling matters.

"He's having..hallucinations, I think." Heath remembered the shaking hands of the night before. "He told me he's been seeing things, hearing things from the war. He's been getting confused about whether he's at home or in the army. He can't remember where he is half the time." Heath trailed off miserably.

Victoria remembered her dismissal of Nick's hurt and anger once Jarrod's deception was revealed. "He'll get over it." She cringed as the pitiless words came back to her.

She should have gone to him, talked to him. But she'd been so relieved that everyone was safe. None of her children were hurt. None of the children were injured or bleeding, not on the outside anyway. She'd been utterly exhausted and it was easy to dismiss Nick's anger as nothing more than a tantrum. How had that looked to Nick? Probably like everyone thought Jarrod was right. And if Jarrod was right then Nick had to be wrong so who could Nick possibly talk to?

"Nicholas my son," she grieved "We hurt you badly."

Jarrod was staring at Heath with a sort of slowly dawning horror. "Why didn't he tell me?"

"Why do you think, Jarrod?" Heath exploded. "For Christ's sake Jarrod, you set Nick up, you USED him! He's your brother!"

Heath pushed away from the table and glared at Jarrod.

"Didn't it occur to you that maybe this could be hard on him? That you were using him as bait to draw in the General and that bait in a trap usually gets chewed up?" Heath shook his head incredulously. "Jarrod, I gotta, know. When they came to you with this plan did you stop to think about what this might do to Nick? That he could end up being hurt?"

"I never..." Jarrod faltered for words "I never thought..."

"He thinks the world of you Jarrod. He may argue and quarrel with you but did you ever notice that he almost always gives in? That in the end, he usually does what you want? About the only thing he stands firm on is running the ranch, other than that he does things your way. He figgers you must be right, most the time. After all.." the words came out bitterly "You are the smart one, or so he's always been told."

Victoria looked stricken and Heath savagely cursed himself for revealing more than he intended to. He was too tired to be having an angry conversation if he was revealing confidences he knew Nick would rather keep private. And Jarrod...

Jarrod was reviewing the whole matter from start to finish, Heath's words having shredded Jarrod's self-congratulatory assumption that everything had worked perfectly.

_I thought about Nick._ The thought sounded whiny and defensive even to him.

_'Right,'_ his conscience replied far too promptly. _'You thought about him for three seconds and decided you could handle him. It never occurred to you that he might deserve a little more consideration than being 'handled', did it?'_

He flinched at the brutal accusation. It wasn't fair. He had never intended to hurt Nick, even Nick had known that. Jarrod had just wanted to get to the truth.

_'Oh yes, your all fired truth!'_ the relentless little voice in his mind mocked. _'What are you willing to sacrifice for your immutable truths? Your brother? Surely, he won't mind if you spill his blood on your precious alter of truth. And even if he does, you can 'handle him, right? So, go to it, Pappy, handle his nightmares, the ones you didn't know he had.'_

Nightmares..dreams. Jarrod remembered the dream he'd had last night.

_**"Take care of your little brother, Jarrod."**_

Oh God.

_**BVBVBVBVBVBVBVBVBVBVBVBVB**_

There was a scar on Jarrod's chin that had come courtesy of brother Nick, or more exactly one of brother Nick's more hair-raising escapades involving a 20 foot waterfall and a barrel. Jarrod had waded in to stop his reckless sibling only to get swept over the falls himself. Naturally, Nick had walked off without a scratch.

At first Jarrod had been sufficiently embarrassed by the scar to try covering it up with an "I'm concentrating" chin stroking gesture that looked incredibly thoughtful and wise, or so he believed from the lofty perspective of an overly self conscious 16 year old. Now it was an ingrained habit that unthinkingly appeared whenever he was worried about his brother. He was aware he was doing it now only because he was also searching for a probably worthless precedent in a poorly organized book and his arm was getting tired from moving down to the page and then back up to his face.

"Can't sleep?"

Jarrod's idle page flipping was interrupted by his mother's voice.

"No." He closed the book, marking his place with a finger. "I've been trying to find a precendent but I haven't had any luck." His finger rubbed the scar on his chin again.

Victoria sat down beside him and they listened to the clock checking off the seconds.

"I'm being ridiculous. This is stupid sitting up and waiting for him. He's probably stopped somewhere for the night." Jarrod started to stand but his mother laid a finger on his arm, stilling him. He could remember as a boy how he could always tell how angry she was by the tension in her hands; right now there was no tension, no anger, just pain.

"Remember the day he was born?" Jarrod finally broke the silence.

"I'm not likely to forget." His mother responded dryly. "You took 19 hours of labor pains and I was all prepared to go through it again. Instead he was born in less than three hours." She smiled "At the time I was relieved. Years later I realized he probably had some great idea for a practical joke and was in a hurry to get here and put it into action."

Jarrod wasn't smiling like she'd thought he would; his face was intent as his eyes gazed on the old memory.

"I remember how you handed him to me, how you told me he was my responsibility. I remember being terrified that you were trusting me with something - someone! - so important, but at the same time I was so happy. Holding my brother that first time was one of the happiest moments of my life. Of course, at the time I didn't realize what I was letting myself in for." He gave his mother a scolding look. "You really should have started me out with a dog first." he chided.

"Oh, a puppy would have been too easy." His mother laughed. "It would have lulled you into a false sense of security when nothing could really prepare you for Nick."

Jarrod smiled, then turned to look at Victoria. "I haven't been doing a very good job by him lately, have I?"

Victoria shook her head. "None of us have. You mustn't take all the blame on yourself."

"I'm not just talking about the last week; I've been going back over a lot of things tonight and trying to see them from Nick's point of view. Heath was right you know; Nick does give ground more often than I give him credit for."

Victoria was silent for a moment. "I think you're being too hard on yourself."

"Oh?" Jarrod stood up and started pacing restlessly, realizing he'd wanted to do that for hours. "Remember Julia Saxon? Remember what Nick's reaction was when I brought her home? 'What's SHE doing here?'"

"How could I forget" Victoria replied a bit tartly, "I wanted to box his ears for bad manners like I would have done when he was 12."

"You know, Heath told me a few weeks later that had he been in Nick's shoes he probably would have reacted the same way. Julia Saxon fed secrets to the confederacy and Nick's regiment was decimated BECAUSE of the information Julia provided. He buried men he'd fought beside for years. When I walked in with her, it must have been like a kick in the teeth. He probably saw me saying that the soldiers he lost that day were nothing; were less important than some old girlfriend. I meant to talk to him about it. I never did."

Victoria hadn't thought of that possibility. Looked in that context, Nick's reaction to the woman seemed downright tame, and his efforts to clear Julia Saxon of murder charges incredibly generous. Granted he had done it for Jarrod, not Julia, but the fact that he could bring himself to do it at all spoke volumes for Nick's love for his brother.

"Jarrod-"

"Do you know how long it's been since he called me 'Pappy'?" He turned to look at her. "At least a year, probably longer. I just hadn't really paid much attention."

"Jarrod, that doesn't mean he no longer trusts you."

"I know. But it does mean he doesn't feel close to me anymore. Somehow in the last two years he stopped talking-REALLY talking to me. Maybe because I stopped listening; I don't know. If I was listening I probably wouldn't have agreed to the whole 'show trial' for General Alderson."

"You did what you thought was right. That's what your father and I taught you to do."

"No, that's part of what you and father taught me to do. The other part of what you taught me to do was take care of my responsibilities to my family. Mother, it's not just that I arranged that fiasco the other evening and Nick ended up being hurt. It's that I arranged it all without even thinking about him." The memory of his dream stung him again. "I neglected the first and most important responsibility anyone ever gave me."

Victoria didn't answer him. There was nothing she could say.

BVBVBVBVBVBVBV

Cocoa stumbled into the barn, his owner not in much better shape. Nick looked around stupidly for a moment until his surroundings penetrated his overly tired brain. Mechanically he pulled the tack off the horse and curried the gelding, staying awake only by dint of focusing on dragging the brush down Cocoa's hide. He dumped some oats in the feed bin and left the barn with the same super focused attention on completing every step. He fumbled with the front door before getting it open, grateful that no one was awake, pausing in the doorway to get oriented.

_I need a drink_

Right. Whiskey would go right to his head on an empty stomach Then again, who the hell cared? He managed to pick up a bottle and an empty glass without breaking them, then headed for his room. Thank God for double locks and double shots.

He wasn't even aware of sleepless hours passing until he heard Heath's soft voice through the door.

"Hey big brother, did you find out anything?"

Nick throttled back a tide of hysterical giggling. "No."

"I talked to the family for you."

Nick choked on another wave of giggles that threatened to escape, imagining the conversation at the dinner table:

_'Listen everyone,'_ he could hear Heath say,_ 'Nick has flipped and needs to be locked up.'_

Then Jarrod, looking up with interest._ 'Dibs on his room.'_

_not fair, Nicholas. Not fair at all_

Fortunately, he felt no need to be fair at the moment. There was a scuffling noise outside the door and he realized Heath was awaiting a response. Nick searched him memory, trying to recall what the proper answer would be.

_'go to hell on the horse you rode in on,'_

_'whaddaya want a medal? '_

_'thanks Heath I appreciate that'_

He decided to try the third one.

"Thanks, Heath. I appreciate it."

Another scraping sound, Heath was probably shifting his weight from foot to foot nervously.

"Do you want to talk about it?"

_Sure! Let's talk about it, split a beer have some laughs and I'll tell you what a gutless monster I am; that'll be a jim dandy conversation._

"Maybe later."

Heath mumbled something, waited a few more minutes, then moved off when he realized no response was forthcoming. Nick was just happy to be left alone with his stomach twisting friend, Mr Booze. His peace and quiet was short lived.

"Nick?" It was Audra's voice

"Please go away."

"Nick , I want to talk to you."

"I don't really want to talk to anyone right now." His voice was rough, shaking. _I need a drink. I need a drink. I need a drink._ The bottle was half empty, how long had he been drinking?

"Nick please. I want to help you."

"I just want to be alone right now, alright? Just...Just tell everybody ,,, best leave me alone."

Nick uncurled himself from around the bottle he'd purloined from downstairs and poured a glass; not caring that it was Jarrod's scotch rather than whisky, just needing something to make him forget before he unraveled completely. Needing something to block out the memory of the trapped, pleading fear in the private's eyes before the General had killed the boy. Just like Mayville. Just like Bobby Bats.

_**"Like shooting fish in a barrel, Lt."**_

His stomach heaved again and he ordered it not to throw up. It was a relief when his stomach complied. Maybe he'd actually make it through this without humiliating himself any further than he already had. Then again, maybe not.

"Nick?" It was his mother's voice now.

_Go away go away just leave me alone please._

"Nick, we need to talk."

"I'm really tired, right now Mother. I just want to rest."

Another swallow of scotch, another coal of nausea burned through his chest. For a moment he had the oddest thought _i wonder if i'm swallowing acid_ before the alcohol kicked his empty stomach. Funny how the sour pain could be comforting.

Victoria listened to the muffled voice, trying to judge what shape her son was in.

"Nick, I want you to open the door this minute!" She jumped as something slammed into the door with a shattering of glass.

"Leave me ALONE!"

She could hear a raspy wheeze through the wood and bit her lip, thinking he sounded like a man clinging to his sanity by his fingernails. She felt a hand on her shoulder and turned to see Jarrod standing beside her, his eyes bottomless pools of guilt. He started to speak through the closed door, then stopped himself and moved stiffly away. Victoria struggled to put her thoughts in order. Jarrod would have to be involved in helping Nick through this or whatever they tried wouldn't really work. Nick wasn't going anywhere right now. Victoria realized sadly that for the moment, Nick wasn't _capable_ of going anywhere.

"Will you talk to us tomorrow?"

There was a rough pleading sound to her voice that cut him to the quick. He writhed at the knowledge of how he was hurting her.

"Nick, if we let you rest today will you talk to us about it tomorrow?"

Silence and nothing more. Tears were running down his face and he couldn't speak, couldn't breathe, couldn't move a muscle without allowing sobs to escape.

"We're your family, Nick. We want to help. Please."

"Yeah, tomorrow." _Anything to get her to leave._ "I promise. Just, please leave me alone right now."

"I'll bring some food up for you and leave it outside your door."

Victoria waited for a moment but there wasn't an answer. When she came back from speaking with her firstborn, she noticed the tray was sitting, cold and untouched, in the hall.

_**BVBVBVBVBVBVBVBVBVBV**_

Victoria sat in the drawing room, a cool cloth pressed to her head. A headache was pounding through her temples and she needed to be as clear headed as possible right now. She had the oddest sensation of failure, something she just didn't experience very often and almost never with her family. But she was failing Nick right now. No, she had failed him right after the whole mock court martial. She hadn't gone to him. She hadn't talked to him and worse hadn't even considered it. She had just casually assumed everything was alright with her son and with Nick, that was always a mistake.

Because Nick, for all that he was considered a constant talker, didn't talk about things that were really troubling him. He might argue loudly; express opinions about the ranch or ranch business loudly, but if it was something that was eating him up badly, he'd snap his mouth shut and try to solve it on his own. Always had. With Nick, you had to listen not just to what he said but what he wasn't saying based on his behavior. She had discovered that when he was a child and started having problems in school.

She hadn't expected him to have problems. He was attending the same school Jarrod had attended, and Jarrod had loved it there. Her older son assured Nick that he would find school a wonderful experience. Victoria still remembered shining anticipation with which Nick had greeted the school year. At the end of the first day he had been subdued, with exhaustion she had assumed. He was, after all, only seven albeit a highly energetic seven.

When she asked, he said bluntly he didn't like school. She told him to give it some time and he would adjust. But the rest of the year followed the same pattern. He became increasingly sullen and resentful and his grades were dropping. Thomas handled it the old fashioned way; inadequate marks led to a spanking and discipline. Victoria considered talking to the teacher, Mr Roland. But Jarrod had praised the man so much she assumed that Nick simply wasn't applying himself.

Had this not been such a hectic few years at the ranch she would have followed her instincts; but these few years were filled with drought, followed by flooding rains and she was working just as hard as her husband to keep it running and profitable. Talking to Mr Roland became something she would do next month, and then the month after and the month after.

It wasn't until a ten year old Nick came home midway through the year and flat out said he wouldn't go any longer that she realized this was a serious problem. Tom had been annoyed and slightly amused by the declaration only to discover just how wide and deep his son's stubborn streak was.

Jarrod could have warned them. Jarrod however, was always being chided for failing to get his brother to meekly follow his lead, and had decided that both his parents could use a lesson in just how mule headed Nick could be. Jarrod sat back and watched.

Tom moved from the 'no dinner' to the 'grounded except for chores' to the 'heaping on the chores' punishment level in three days. The fourth day he added a 'spanking by hand' to the list. The fifth day he had to go on a short business trip and left a staggering list of chores for his wayward boy. He came home confident that Nick would now fall in line and was livid when Nick still refused to go back to school.

When Victoria saw Tom remove his belt and grab up the boy, she interceded. Tom was too angry to handle the situation and she had the distinct impression that Nick would simply dig in his heels all the harder for the punishment.

She also believed Nick had good reason to dislike school so. To Tom, Nick was being disobedient, period. To Victoria, there was a problem at school and she set out to investigate it. A meeting with the teacher had spelled it out for her. John Roland had been Jarrod's teacher and she had been impressed at the time with the extra effort and obvious delight the man had taken in her son's keen mind.

Mr. Roland was well educated and had rigid expectations. In his school, students were to listen quietly with their hands folded and follow his every word. Jarrod, so orderly that at age five he had started refolding his socks because "Mother creased them wrong." had thrived in the strict atmosphere. Nick was suffocating.

Additionally, Mr. Roland regarded the rowdy ten-year with barely veiled contempt and during the thirty-minute meeting with Victoria had unfavorably compared Nick to Jarrod on five different occasions. If, as she suspected, he belittled her son everyday with the same comparisons, it was no wonder Nick returned from school sullen and withdrawn.

The instructor ended the conference by suggesting that Nick lacked the intelligence to get any benefit from school, anyway. In a voice dripping with icy fury Victoria had informed him that she wouldn't send ANYONE to his school, much less her any more of her children. Mr. Roland, who thought of himself as a fatherly figure being "cruel to be kind' had no idea what had set the woman off. She had seemed so rational when Jarrod was his student.

Given how much Nick hated school and by extension learning at that point, sending him to another school would have been a disaster. Victoria coaxed her mulish men into a compromise: She would educate Nick at home for the remainder of the school year as long as he kept up with the rest of his age group.

Tom grudgingly agreed. Nick, hating the idea but feeling anything would be better than Mr. Roland's class, also grudgingly agreed. Like two battered boxers with a declared draw, they slunk to their respective corners and sulked.

The first week, Victoria almost gave up. Nick hated the McGuffy Readers, hated the history books, and hated the math assignments. Whatever love of learning he had ever possessed had seemingly been squashed under Roland's tutelage.

In desperation, remembering how fascinated Nick had always been by pictures of Knight in Shining Armor, she had pulled out a copy of "La Morte D'Arthur." Nick was entranced. For the first time in three years he would sit quietly and read.

This glaringly reinforced how different her boys were. She had always known Nick was louder and more emotional that Jarrod, but she was struck by the differences in the way they learned.

Fourteen-year-old Jarrod was already one of the most thoughtful and intelligent persons she had ever known. He had the discipline of a preacher and the patience of a bird watcher, two traits that made for an excellent student.

Nick, on the other hand, was easily distracted. A squirrel climbing by the window could cause a carefully presented math lesson disappear from his mind. The rustle of leaves, the sound of a dog barking… any kind of disturbance was noticed and pursued with far more interest than the task at hand.

The exception, she noted, was when he became absorbed in what he was doing, then the opposite occurred. He became deaf and blind to everything around him. The day she gave him "LeMorte D'Arthur" she watched in utter amazement as he remained oblivious to a thunderstorm and read far past lunch without noticing the passing of time.

She also discovered a second difference between the boys. Jarrod would have finished a chapter, recapped the plot and discussed the themes in around 15 minutes and been ready to move on. Nick spent the next few days exploring every aspect of the story.

They rode around the ranch and she spent hours answering questions about what chivalry was. Was Merlin good or evil? How did Kay feel about Arthur after he became the king? How did the other knights feel about Merlin? What did the word 'morte' mean and didn't it sound a lot like the word 'mortal' and so on. The next Monday she threw out the McGuffy reader.

History she handled in a different way. She immediately restructured her lesson to focus on the middle ages while her son was interested in the subjects. She found that while Nick was interested in a subject, he would happily bury himself in it. He wanted to know everything about it, the kings, the peasants, why castles were built the way they were. As long as he was focused on the topic he would devour everything in sight about it…and then seemingly, without warning, would lose all interest. She managed to stuff the entire dark ages, the black death (a subject that turned into a one week lesson when Nick's imagination was caught by the name) the middle ages and part of the renaissance before he lost interest.

She also found she could engage him in historical studies by using his love of animals. Nick was only slightly interested in Alexander the Great but fascinated by his horse, Bacephalus. A discussion of Hannibal crossing the Alps was received indifferently until she mentioned the elephants.

"Elephants?" Nick had brightened immediately. "What were their names?"

"Well, there was…Trunkonius." She seized gratefully at the lifeline. "There was uh..Stompius, Trumpinious." She was frantically making mental notes of the conjured names "Uh..Earacles…" The rest of the lesson went swimmingly as long as she remembered to sprinkle in phrases such as "..then Hannibal won the battle of Cannae, while riding his favorite elephant Grayskinnius.."

Much to her relief, Nick was fascinated by Julius Caesar though sadly unconcerned about Cleopatra. He did ask her what happened to the asp who had delivered the Egyptian rulers' fatal bite. Experience had taught Victoria well; she assured him the snake was hailed as a hero by the Romans, who allowed it to live a long and happy life surrounded by splendor.

Math had been a different matter. She had been surprised at his natural talent for the subject. He tended to listen to her introduction, get the point and drift away, thus missing all subsequent elements of the lesson and ending up lost. She switched tactics and brought out her husband's accounting records and was astonished when he immediately grasped the point and located several errors Tom had made.

Over the course of the summer Nick had easily caught up with the rest of his schoolmates and had even regained a sort of grudging acknowledgement that lessons did not have to be miserable. In the following fall he resumed classes at a new school and in general turned in acceptable, if unenthusiastic work. He never once regained the joy and excitement he had shown in the first few weeks of the first grade and Victoria still bitterly blamed herself for not taking action long before they had reached a crisis point.

She had thought she had learned better but with her son isolating himself in the room, not eating and refusing to talk to anyone, it was clear she hadn't learned a thing.

_**BVBVBVBVBVBVBV**_

Supper was silent except for the sound of food being lifelessly pushed around plates. Silas had made chicken creole, Nick's favorite, possibly in the hopes that it would stir his appetite. So far, the tray left in front of his door had gone untouched.

"Maybe a Doctor could help." Audra suggested finally.

"What kind of Doctor could help?" Victoria asked. "He doesn't even want to talk to anyone."

A moment of silence.

"I might know someone." Heath suggested, as there was a knock at the front door. He paused as Silas hurried to answer it, then returned to the dining room.

"Mrs Barkley, that army Major from that night is here."

Looks were exchanged around the table mixed with more than a small amount of hostility.

After a moment Audra spoke up.

"What does he want now?"

Silas cleared his throat.

"He said he's here to see Mr Nick."

_**BVBVBVBVBVBVBVBV**_

"Mr Barkley, It's Major Macklin. I need to speak to you."

There was a creak of floorboards and the sound of a key turning in the lock. The door opened less than an inch revealing a hazel eye that flickered nervously about.

"What is it?" "I need to talk to you about Mayville."

"I've said all I plan to say about that night."

The Major's jaw tightened. "No sir, you haven't. Now we can talk now or we can talk a week from now in front of a grand jury."

"What do you want from me?" The door started to close and Macklin blocked it with his foot.

"Robert Batson."

Nick opened the door a little wider and looked silently at the intellegence officer.

"Why don't you just arrest me?"

"Because," The major's answer was surprisingly gentle "I'd rather talk to you."

Nick nodded slowly. It didn't make sense; but then nothing else that had happened in the last week or so had either.

"Give me a few minutes. I'll meet you in the study."

Major Macklin studied him carefully and decided the man was in no shape for bolting out the window.

"Fine."

As soon as the Major reached the study, Jarrod pounced on the officer.

"Major, would you mind telling me just what in hell is going on? Nick was at the fort less than a day ago. If you had questions why not talk to him then?"

The major's expression didn't change.

"When he arrived I didn't know he was there. At the time he left the situation was naturally a little hectic, what with most of the men trying to scrape the general off the wall."

"What are you talking about?"

Major Macklin cast him a puzzled look. "He told you didn't he?"

"Major," Victoria's cool voice stepped in, "Nick has barely said a word to anyone since he came home. He went to his room, locked the door and he's been there ever since."

Macklin's eyes widened in surprise. "Alderson's killed himself."

"Oh God." Audra whispered.

Jarrod dug his fingernails into his palm. _He didn''t tell us; he came back and locked himself away and didn't tell us because he didn't trust us, not anymore_ He buried the guilt away behind his legal training, letting his intellect take over.

"What exactly happened Major Macklin?"

"We're not entirely certain; that's one of the reasons I need to talk to your brother."

If the Major was offended by Jarrod's 'Prosecuting Attorney' tone he didn't show it.

"He had a gun."

The voice was slurred from lack of sleep and, Jarrod suspected, from liquor. Nick stepped in the room and Jarrod shuddered. _He looks like he's been dragged face down through hell._ His brother hadn't shaved in days, his hair was tangled and uncombed. He had lost weight and appeared to have spatters of mud on his face and clothes. His usually clear gaze was clouded with sorrow and doubt. Major Macklin's eyes drifted over the stiff stains on Nick's clothing.

"Mr Barkley," That odd gentleness was back again, "Would you like to change your clothes?"

"Huh?"

Nick looked at the Major uncomprehendingly.

"You have blood on your clothes, sir."

To his horror, Jarrod realized the Major was right; the stains on the shirt were reddish brown, and Jarrod noted with a queasy twisting sensation that fleshy specks of brain matter were stiffly clinging to the cuffs. "Shock" that dry legal voice observed in his head.

_'He came home and locked himself in his room without even noticing the blood because he's in shock.'_

Jarrod stepped forward to help his brother and saw Nick back away.

"Don't touch me." There was whiff of scotch and Jarrod wondered how much he'd had to drink. "Just don't... Don't touch me."

Nick sidled over to a chair and the Major took the opposite one. Jarrod ached to sit beside his brother but reluctantly held back. He had the sick feeling that Nick had privately decided that this might be another setup of some kind and had no intention of trusting his back to ANYONE except maybe Heath. Victoria caught her eldest son's arm and pulled him towards the couch where Heath sat, shoulders hunched and Audra was perched on the end, a frightened look on her face.

_Of course she's scared. I'm scared_

Major Macklin opened a folder and pulled out some paper and a pencil.

"Can you tell me what happened today?"

Nick blinked slowly. "I asked to see the General. They had me leave my gun up front and escorted me to a room. A guard came in with Alderson. The private was just a kid, scared. I could smell it all the way across the room but I didn't know why. Then the General took the kids' pistol and I could see he had a derringer in his hand."

"How'd he get a derringer?" The Major demanded.

"I dunno." Nick focused his eyes on Macklin "It's your jail, Major. You tell me." He enunciated the words carefully, and Macklin gave him a hard stare before making a note on the papers.

"What did you do when you saw the gun?"

"Didn't do anything."

"Why not?" "I thought I was imagining it. I've been...seeing things lately. I thought it was just..something that...wasn't really there. Then he took the kid's gun and I knew it was real."

Macklin frowned. "This happened immediately after Alderson entered the room?"

"Yes."

"According to the guards outside the room you were in there for over a half an hour."

"Maybe. I dunno. I kinda lost track of time."

"Doing what? Talking?"

"Hmm?" The hazel eyes had the glazed unfocused look to them again.

"What took a half an hour? Were you talking?" Macklin was losing patience. "Sharing a drink? Discussing the weather? Try-"

"Playing. We were playing."

"Playing? Playing what?"

"Game. General said we'd play a game. He uh..he cocked the derringer and put it against the guard's head. and he emptied the bullets from the pistol. He told the kid to put one bullet in it and spin the chamber. Then he gave me the gun and told me the rules were that I'd point the gun at my head and pull the trigger. If it didn't go off then I pointed it at him and fired again. If it still didn't go off we'd spin the chamber and try again. Told me if I didn't do what he said, he'd kill the guard. So, I played the game."

Heath was shaking; guards at Carterson had played sadistic games like that with prisoners. He was spared that torture, but he'd seen it take a terrible toll on those who been forced to take part in the entertainment. He didn't need to look to know Jarrod was shaking as well, and he could feel Victoria's fingernails pressing into his arm. Oddly enough, he didn't mind the pain she was inflicting; it helped block out the soft hopeless tone in his brother's voice.

"He got tired of it, said it was taking too long. He had the kid load all six bullets instead of one, told me to choose head or tails. Said if I didn't call it while the coin was in the air, he'd kill the guard anyway. Then he flipped the coin in the air. I called tails."

"And that's what came up? Tails?"

That unfocused gaze again.

"I didn't see. I just saw him push the gun against that scared kids' temple and pull the trigger. I was trying to get across the table to stop him but I couldn't. The kid hit the floor, and the General put the gun in his mouth and fired again. " Nick closed his eyes for a second. "He was laughing."

"Why did you leave the fort after we told you not to?"

"I don't know. I don't remember anyone saying anything to me. I wouldn't have heard them anyway over the baby."

"What Baby?" Macklin looked up sharply.

"The one who was screaming." Nick explained.

"There are no children at that fort, Mr Barkley." Macklin said flatly.

"I heard it." The words were soft but there was no doubt in anyone's mind but that he was serious. "That's all I could hear. I had to get away from the screaming."

The Major cleared his throat uneasily. "Mr Barkley, do you think there is any chance that the 'baby' you heard had any connection to the events in Mayville?"

"Now wait a minute!" Jarrod was on his feet in an instant. "I'm not sure where you think you're going, but this conversation just ended."

"No sir, it didn't." The major's voice was steady and he eyed Jarrod with annoyance. "This conversation is continuing until I get everything I need to close the file."

"Leave it Jarrod." Nick's flat voice put in.

"Not a chance," Jarrod snapped, "this conversation is over until I confer with my client."

For the first time Nick's emotions cracked through and turned on his brother with sudden fury.

"This isn't some legal game, Jarrod! Stop treating me like I'm some puppet. I'm not your client." A sullen, angry note crept in, "I wouldn't know who you're really working for anyway."

"Nick!" Victoria was shocked at the bitter words. Jarrod took a deep breath.

"All right Nick, I deserved that. But you're right, this isn't a game and you need to consult a lawyer. If not me than someone else. Please let me help."

Nick pulled his head into his shoulders. "Macklin will you please shut him up or get him out of here?"

The major cocked his head. "It appears to be your choice, Counselor."

Defeated, Jarrod sat down. He had called down this storm, the least he should do is see it through. Macklin turned back to Nick.

"General Alderson alleges that you used the confusion that night in Mayville to murder a soldier you didn't like. A Batson-"

"Bats. S'what we called him: Bobby Bats." Funny how such a booming voice could sound so empty. The major looked down at his folder.

"Private Robert Batson. The General claims you two fought over a woman."

A hoarse, cynical laugh.

"A woman. No, I wouldn't describe it as a fight. I brought him up on charges of rape. The 'woman' was a 12 year old girl. And the charges were dropped, because her parents refused to let her testify. A week later their house burned down killing everyone in the family. I couldn't really prove that he did it; and no one was interested in pursuing it. He was a 'good soldier' you see."

Macklin had heard that reasoning before. An amazing number of officers went to great lengths to ignore the wrong doings of a soldeier that killed efficiently.

"What did you know about Private Batson?" Nick started rubbing at a bloodstain on his forehead, the maroon mark crumbling away under his fingers.

"Nothing really." He sounded like he was discussing an event he could not have cared less about. "We called him Bobby Bats 'cause he was crazy. Really, bone deep crazy. He loved war, loved it. Loved shooting people, loved the blood and pain. Loved the corpses it left behind. He volunteered for every burial detail. It didn't matter if some poor sod had been dead five seconds or five months; just as long as he could handle the bodies. I remember hearing him talk once about 'shootin' lice'. That's what he called killing confederates, 'shootin' lice'. He said he always tried to gut shoot 'em. They'd linger that way, he said. Sometimes they'd linger for weeks, gangrene eating away at 'em from the inside out. That's when the men started calling him Bobby Bats."

The Major nodded; he already had this information.

"Did you see him that night in Mayville?"

"Yes."

"And what happened?"

A shake of the head. "I'm not sure I remember."

"Start with what you do remember."

_the patrol, then gunshots_

"I was...I was leading a small patrol. Everyone in it was new; for some it was their first night. I was just taking them on a short trip around the camp, getting them a little experience. A lot of these were kids, farm boys. Others were from the city and this gave them a chance to get used to patrolling at night, the way it felt and sounded. I once saw a kid on his first patrol panic when he rode through a spiderweb. He ran right into enemy lines. They killed him of course."

Victoria cringed at the chillingly casual words.

"After that I tried to grab up the new boys and take them on a short trip around the perimeter their first night; get their first patrol under their belt, maybe shake some of the jitters." He stopped, wondering where his mind was taking him. What was the subject? Mayville. What happened that night in Mayville.

"Go on." Macklin prodded.

"We were just about finished when I heard the shots. The last thing I wanted to do was drag these kids into combat; I couldn't see any other options though. We headed towards Mayville." Nick closed his eyes on the memory. "It was madness. The only soldiers in town were ours and they were shooting at anything that moved. There were civilians bleeding in the street and houses being burned. Some of the soldiers were looting stores. I didn't know what to do."

He looked up with a half pleading expression and his family could see the uncertain boy faced with an impossible situation that he had been that night.

"I didn't know what to do. Standard Rule- When you're in a situation that's new to you follow Military Protocol. But Military Protocol didn't really cover this. There's no section on the appropriate actions to take when you find your regiment sacking a town. Uh, I..."

He could feel a headache starting behind his eyes.

"Hell, I didn't know what to do. I just...I told my men to protect the civilians. We started evacuating women and children and moving them to a sheltered corral. I set up guards and told them to shoot any soldier trying to hurt the citizens. Then I went out into the main street." His mind started wandering again. "It could have been worse, ya know. Most of the soldiers were so glad to have someone give them orders they would've obeyed anyone. I'd tell them to put down their weapons and try to put out the fires. Or have them start evacuating civilians back to the corral. Anything to get them calmed down.'

'It seemed like we'd get one street settled and another would go up in flames. I was looking for General Alderson but no one knew where he was, they just kept saying he was in town." The Major was scribbling notes furiously now, his pencil the only thing to be heard in the room aside from the rasping voice.

"Someone shot my horse. I didn't see who, too much smoke. I saw another fire starting up the street and started running in that direction." Nick paused for a moment; this is were the dream always started and he felt his body shivering. "There was a fire, a house on fire and some people near a tree, hiding sort of. They were kids I think, maybe they were slaves. I heard somebody yelling at me not to worry, it was only blacktown, so they may have been slaves.'

"It was muddy. I remember I kept slipping in the mud and I heard screaming. A woman, was running out of a burning building with two little kids. Babies really, they weren't old enough to walk. I could see where her hair had been burned off; she had smoke coming off her skin, clothes were on fire. She just collapsed. She was still too close to the fire for the kids to be safe but she couldn't go any further. The babies were holding onto her and crying. I started running over, sliding in the mud."

_Mud like cold molasses sucking on his feet, send him falling to his hands and knees as he tried to run to the woman. In his dream he had forgotten something important but he didn't know what it was, he was drawn by the sight of the burning woman and the two children..._ "Mr Barkley?"

His hands were shaking again and he pushed them against his chin in unconscience imitation of prayer as he tried to focus on answering the questions.

"I was trying to reach the poor woman to get her babies to safety but I knew I was going to be too late. That's when I saw a soldier walk up to her. I was so relieved. Uh...I um..I think I stopped running. I thought 'He'll move them, they'll be safe.' I think I even smiled. And then I heard the soldier laughing and I realized it was Bobby Bats. That he'd probably set the house on fire, that he'd killed her. That he'd kill anybody. I knew all that. I knew that...

'And I did nothing. I just watched as he...he looked down at those two little kids, and he shot them."

_blood spattering wildly as the terrified shrieking of the infants stopped his whole world narrowed in horror at the shattered bodies grouped on the ground_ "He looked so happy, like a kid on Christmas morning who was seeing at his presents instead of these...slaughtered...babies. He was smiling. Then he saw me and he said, "Like shooting fish in a barrel, huh, Lt?' and he smiled again. He just looked so ... happy.'

"And I think that's when I emptied my gun into his face."

_**BVBVBVBVBV**_

"Mr Barkley."

Nick stared at the carpet, seeing not the patterns of the rug but broken skulls and bleeding infants.

"Mr Barkley." He could hear another sound behind the Major's voice and absently identified it as weeping, whether his own or his Mother's or his sisters he wasn't sure. The blood had soaked into the ground, making dark designs of mud that would soon dry from the heat of the burning house nearby.

"Mr Barkley." He was suspended in time, trapped in this long ago nightmare of reality. There was no sound in the universe besides the Majors' soft words, the spitting laugh of the flames and his own voice hoarsely begging the lifeless babies to be all right, pleading to God for a miracle that didn't come. A hand touched his shoulder and he looked up into eyes that seemed as sad as his own.

"Mr Barkley. Do you understand what you've just said?" He nodded, the effort it took to move his head those few inches leaving him exhausted beyond belief. "A violation of section..." he searched for the rule but couldn't find it. "I'm sorry but I don't remember the section. It states that to deliberately inflict injuries ..." his voice trailed off again. "I'm sorry, but I don't remember exactly what it says..." He lacked the energy to finish the thought.

"If you think you're going to use that statement," Jarrod's voice broke in, cold and sharp "I suggest you think again. I can get it thrown out so fast your head will spin."

Macklin looked up, seeming almost as wrung out and ragged as the family.

"It was a voluntary statement, Jarrod. You know that as well as I do. You also know there's not going to be a statute of limitations on this."

"He doesn't know what he's saying. Nick hasn't slept for days, he's half drunk, for all we know this is just some dream he had-"

"Not a dream." Nick whispered.

"Quiet Nick. "

"I have a statement from your brother-"

"At the moment he's not competent to give a statement."

"I have a statement from Alderson-"

"Who was probably insane-"

"-about the events leading up the the death of Batson in Mayville-"

"Had every reason to lie-"

"GODDAMN IT, Jarrod!" Macklin struggled with his temper. He hated this case. He hated Mayville and General Alderson and Robert Batson. He hated what he was doing now. He turned to Nick, noting how the cowboy was worn to a frayed thread, not at all like the confident, brash fellow of the other evening.

Nick had unnerved him the night of the trial. He had been so brisk and business like while discussing the massacre in abstract military terms that it had made the major uncomfortable. Two things had kept Macklin from disliking the man that evening. One, he had testimony from people he trusted as to the young Lt's actions that night. Two, in the time he had spent investigating the massacre he had discovered that a large number of the soldiers involved had reacted to questions the same way. They invariably had not talked about Mayville to anyone since the night it happened and when they did finally provide details, they generally used the same informative but distant manner, as if it was simply an average military report about an average military action.

Major Macklin had decided against telling Jarrod of the side effect he had noted: more than one man had suffered an emotional breakdown not long after they were interviewed. He was shocked at the speed and severity of Nick's reaction however, or rather had been shocked until he heard the events leading up to the death of Private Batson. Add to that the vicious mind game Alderson had played with his former aide...Gods, no wonder the man was disintegrating so quickly.

"Mr Barkley, would you wait outside for a few minutes?" For a moment he thought he would be ignored, then Nick nodded silently and stumbled through the french doors into the garden. Victoria turned to Heath.

"I'll keep an eye on him." Heath volunteered, and moved to a spot where he could watch his brother through the glass.

"My son..." Victoria Barkley looked pleadingly at Macklin, and he sat down again feeling drained of energy. He knew what he should do now. He had handcuffs in his saddlebags and had been prepared for the possible need to take Nick Barkley into custody for the murder of Robert Batson. The thought of doing so made him feel sick.

In cold legal terms, the correct response for the Lt to have taken after what he witnessed in Mayville was place Batson under arrest immediately and turn him over for trial. That was the army way of handling crimes. The not so cold facts told him that had Barkley not killed the man when he did, the end result would have been more slaughtered civilians, more rapes, more slaughtered innocents.

Batson's ability to avoid justice for the crimes he had already committed argued he would have escaped with little more than a slap on the wrist and picked up his murderous rampage where it left off. Macklin felt the dictates of the army and the dictates of his conscience clashing violently. Was this how Barkley felt that night, watching Mayville burn and Batson rage? He tried to articulate his thoughts, put everything in perspective.

"I'm supposed to uphold the military law Mrs Barkley. That's what keeps a group of scared kids soldiers instead of mindless killers. Military law reminds them there are other laws. That even though they're at war there are certain things that can't be done; certain boundaries that can't be crossed. Certain immutable rules of society that have to be followed or you're not soldiers. You're not even human. You're an unthinking ...thing." Macklin's voice was soft, as if he was talking only to himself.

Jarrod could feel the major's struggle and seized the arguement.

"But if everything falls apart, if madness becomes the rule and you're watching the ...RAPE of decency and humanity...how long can you remain sane if it gets people killed?" His finely tuned lawyer's sense told him he would have only one shot at convincing the officer to walk away. Jarrod's gut instinct told him he wasn't just fighting for Nick's freedom but his brother's life as well.

"How long can you follow rules in a place where rules don't exist? What do you do when obeying 'protocol' gets people killed and shooting down your own man will only save lives?" He saw the doubt on Macklin's face and pressed his point.

"Is there any doubt in your mind that if Nick had hesitate a moment longer, more people would have been murdered by Batson?"

The officer sighed and it occurred to Jarrod that Macklin looked almost as sick and tired as Nick did.

"I'm supposed to uphold military law." To his own ears, the words sounded feeble and hollow. Macklin thought of Alderson, plotting the destruction of an entire town then sleeping like a baby at night. He thought of 'Bobby Bats' feeding the insanity of war with more insanity, destroying all he touched and laughing at the suffering he inflicted while the man who finally put a stop to it was sitting a hundred feet away, wracked with guilt.

"Your brother saved lives that night, did you know that?" His voice was low and angry. "He was the most junior Officer there and he's the only one who kept his head well enough to save lives.. Ninety-seven people, that's how many civilians ended up being protected in that corral on his orders. He organized a fire brigade saved half the town." He glowered at Jarrod " Your lunatic brother even rode his horse into a burning building to get some children to safety. Rode the damn thing through the doors and came back out with two kids in his arms." Macklin gazed compassionately at Victoria Barkley and decided.

"Your boy isn't going to jail for killing 'Bobby Bats'. Your son was a good man, a good officer, everything I've heard."

He opened the folder and scribbled a decision. Allegation: Untrue. He stood up and handed the rest of his notes to Jarrod.

"You better make sure those end up on a fire somewhere."

"They will." Jarrod promised, stuffing the papers in his pocket.

"Major," Victoria tried to find the words but could only come up with "Thank you."

"He saved lives." Macklin repeated. "Your tell him that until he realizes it's true." The major left the room and they could hear the front door opening and closing again, leaving them alone once more.

_**BVBVBVBVBVBVBV**_

Jarrod was feeling as if someone had taken a very large stick and beaten him furiously from head to toe. He saw the figure of his brother slumped in the garden chair and wondered if Nick felt the same way. Certainly Heath did, he was moving with the same tired stiffness to his muscles and their mother- well for the first time Jarrod could remember, she just looked old.

Victoria opened the doors to the garden and rested her hand on her son's shoulder; Jarrod could see sharp edges of bone under her fingers. Nick was dropping weight dramatically and was all but invisible in the shadows; a usually vibrant figure washed out and reduced to grey lines and shades.

"Nicky." She whispered.

A slight movement of the head; Nick hadn't heard the diminutive since he was eight.

"Come upstairs and go to bed."

Jarrod could see Nick strugging to remember why he was out here.

"Macklin. I need to wait for Macklin. He's going to need to take me in."

Jarrod cleared his throat.

"He's not pressing charges, Nick." The cowboy started, and Jarrod realized his generally alert brother had been unaware of his approach. "I talked to him. It's taken care of."

Silence.

"D'ja buy him off?"

Jarrod swallowed a surge of anger- was this what his brother thought of him?- before brutal honesty made him admit he'd brought it on himself. Victoria had sucked in her breath at the question and Audra wouldn't meet his eyes. He composed himself. First things first, take care of his brother, deal with the rest later.

"No. He just wasn't inclined to pursue charges given the circumstances of what happened." Jarrod wondered if his brother even understood him.

"Come on, Nick. Let's go- upstairs." Victoria pulled gently on her son's arm guiding him to his feet and Audra slipped to his other side, tenderly seizing his other hand in her grasp. Nick finally responded to the soft touch of her fingers.

"Audra. My little sister."

She smiled at him. "Walk me upstairs, big brother. Please?"

He nodded and they carefully walked through the study. Heath remained by the pool table while the slowly moving footsteps whispered up the staircase. Jarrod pulled the garden door behind him and sat behind the desk.

"Jesus, Heath. What have I done?"

Heath didn't say anything. He was gently rolling billiard balls across the table, watching them bounce of the sides and roll into each other.

"It's even worse than we thought, isn't it?"

Heath sighed. "Yeah."

One of the billiard balls rolled back to his hand and he pushed it off again.

"Nick never talked about much that happened in the war, did he?"

Jarrod thought about it for a moment.

"No, never did. He talked about people, about Jock, or members of the regiment or people he met. He never did talk about specific battles or what he saw in combat. I asked him about it once, he said he didn't really remember a whole lot."

There was a cartoon figure on the desk blotter that Jarrod was focusing on. Nick must have drawn it as he did when he was puzzling out a problem. An astonished dragon stared quizzically as an oblivious Don Quixote charged madly past the lizard in a determined attack on a blameless windmill. Jarrod smiled at this latest addition to a long succession of errant knights and perpetually puzzled dragons who never could seem to get down to the serious business of mortal combat. Nick had started drawing them when he was around twelve, and they always made Jarrod laugh. Had he ever told his little brother how much he enjoyed them? Jarrod searched his memory and came up blank.

The only comment he had made on Nick's efforts was the time when they both needed the desk and Jarrod had claimed first rights, saying all Nick was going to do was stare into space and scribble a bunch of silly pictures. Nick, with a rare show of quiet dignity, had vacated the desk without a word, and Jarrod winced remembering the hurt look that had flashed through the hazel eyes. He wondered how many other times he had carelessly trod on his brother's feelings with the blithe assumption that what Nick was doing couldn't possibly be as important as Jarrod's work.

"That never struck you as strange?" Heath had left off playing with the billiard balls and turned around. If he was still angry at Jarrod, or felt anything other than deep distress at Nick's situation he was hiding it well.

"It didn't then." Jarrod admitted. "It does now." He studied the blond cowboy for a moment. "You know something."

Heath shook his head. "Not exactly, just..." he thought for a moment. "That new doctor in town, I've met him. He worked at a charity hospital for veterans. He was taking care of a friend of mine. Josh had been through some rough times in the war. A lot like Nick, ya know? Quick to get mad, just as quick to laugh. When the war was over he moved back into civilian life as if he'd never left. Ask him about the war and he just shrugged, said it was a big blur to him and changed the subject. Then out of the blue he started having nightmares, couldn't sleep, started seeing things from the war.'

"One day he walked in talking about blood. He said the rain had turned into blood and we were all about to drown in it. Started talking about the war and seeing his best friend die and..it was a real mess. No one was certain what was wrong, so his family sent him to this hospital."

"That's where you met this Doctor?"

"Yeah. I'd gone to visit Joshie and talked to Dr Martin. He said he'd seen more than a few cases like this. Guys who kept everything they felt guilty about or frightened of under complete wraps. He said he felt like... they sat on everything, didn't deal with things that bothered them as they happened during the war and tried to pretend like it never happened. Problem was, if they couldn't control it anymore they were dealing with everything they remembered all at once instead of handling them one at a time. Like a tree that won't give under the wind and eventually splinters during a storm, he said."

Jarrod swallowed; the analogy seemed a little too descriptive for his comfort.

"What happened to your friend? Was Dr Martin able to help?"

"For while." Heath turned back to the pool table. "Then one day he went home and killed himself."

"Jarrod!" It was Victoria's voice and there was an unaccustomed edge of panic in it.

Audra called Nick's name and a crashing splintering noise came from upstairs. The two brothers broke into a run as they hit the staircase. Jarrod and Heath could hear glass crunching underfoot as they entered the splintered remains of the room in time to witness Mother and Audra trying uselessly to restrain their brother as he up ended the dresser. Victoria and Audra lost their grip and Heath pulled them safely out of the way of the madman rampaging through room.

Jarrod could hear Nick shouting something as he lashed out at anything in reach, shattering breakables, wrenching furniture into pieces with his bare hands. The sobbing words eventually became clear.

"I knew who it was, I saw him there and I didn't do anything. It's my fault..."

Jarrod watched helplessly, not willing to try to beat his brother into submission, hoping the fit of anger and self-hatred would fade quickly. His eyes fell on the only unbroken object in the room at the same moment Nick's did, and Jarrod moved immediately, knowing even as he did that it would be too late. He watched his brother slam both fists into the mirror, shattering it into a thousand pieces and patterning the wall in a spray of bright sable.

Abruptly the rage vanished, as if it had bled away with his body's life fluid, and Nick stood unresisting as his older brother caught his shoulders, pulling him into a tight embrace. Jarrod could feel Audra and Victoria tugging at Nick's hands, frantically wrapping them in towels as Heath helped him lower the alarmingly light cowboy to the floor.

"S'my fault. I let him, I let him do it. I just stood there and watched. My fault." Jarrod cradled his brother, pulled him close as Nick held onto his coat and cried. "I should've done something but I didn't."

He felt the warmth of blood and tears soaking into his shirt as he braced the raven head against his chest, wrapping both arms protectively around the disconsolate, guilt wracked form.

"My fault. I killed them. I killed those babies. Oh God, Pappy I killed them. My fault."

"Easy, little brother." He shushed. "It'll be ok, Nick, Pappy's here." He pulled his brother closer and his anguished eyes met Heath's.

"Dr Marten..." Heath hesitated. "I've got him. I'll take care of everything here. Just get the Doctor." Jarrod tightened his grip on his brother, wishing he could pull him close enough to absorb the pain. He wasn't aware of Heath leaving the room or pounding down the stairs. His world narrowed to the despairing baby brother shuddering in his arms.

"S'allright. It's all right little brother. Pappy will take care of everything. I promise."

_**BVBVBVBVBVBVBV**_

"Let's see, we have blood loss, shock, exhaustion, sleep deprivation, as well as the fact that he probably hasn't eaten in around 4 days. And those are the simple problems."

Dr Martin's face was boyishly beardless to Jarrod's gaze. He was not generally given to bias based simply on a person's age, but a grey hair or two would have been immensely reassuring. As it was, he had already bitten his tongue once when Dr Martin asked for a drink and he almost suggested a nice lemonade. Only Heath's repeated assurances that the man was an excellent Doctor allowed him to sit calmly downstairs talking to this distressingly youthful looking physician, while upstairs Silas was mopping his brothers drying blood off the floor.

It was just a second wind that leave him feeling even more exhausted the next morning. Even at that, he was aware he was embarrassingly ignorant of Nick's actions lately and couldn't answer most of the Doctors' questions. Thank God for Heath, who was providing most of the grim details of the preceding week.

"The incident at the jail," Dr Martin swished his drink around in his glass nervously "When he was forced to 'play' russian roulette, did he see a doctor or talk to anyone about it at the time?"

Jarrod rubbed his finger over the scar on his chin.

"No, he just mounted up and rode back home. When he arrived, he locked himself in his room and stayed there. He wouldn't come out, he wouldn't talk. He didn't even change out of his clothes he was wearing at the fort." Jarrod's eyes studied the flames in the fireplace. "There was blood, and bone and flesh...So much blood they looked black. He wouldn't change out of them. He wouldn't..."

Jarrod wondered if he sounded as numb as he felt. Probably did, judging by the expression on the Dr's face. Then again, maybe that was because he was rambling about Nick refusing to change from the bloodied clothing while he himself was still garbed in the blood-soaked suit he had been wearing when the Doctor arrived three hours ago.

The blood had dried by now of course; the stiff blotchy patterns of maroon scratching the skin of his chest and arms. The discomfort was curiously consoling somehow, like a form of penance. There was some kind of tunic people used to wear in the middle ages for that exact purpose but he couldn't think of the name. He could feel the Doctor's gaze on him again but Jarrod ignored the young man. _Hair shirt._ That was the word he looking for. It felt like he was wearing a hair shirt.

Jarrod struggled to rejoin the conversation. The doctor was still staring at him; even Heath was giving him an uneasy glance.

"And he had never discussed Mayville with any of you?" Dr Martin quizzed Heath.

"No." Answered Heath. "In fact, from what he said, I always got the impression that he didn't really remember that much about it, like everything had been one big blur."

"But that changed after the kangeroo court?" The Doctor leaned forward intently. Jarrod sat up straight in his chair. What was this man getting at?

"Yep. Bit by bit, at least at first." Heath seemed hesitant and uncertain.

"What do you mean exactly?"

Jarrod listened carefully to Heath's answers. "Nick had the first nightmare the night of the court martial. He woke me up."

"No one else heard him though? No one else knew?"

Heath twisted uncomfortably. "Nope. Nick's room is near mine and I'm...I'm a really light sleeper and I'm always um... kinda listening for trouble. Anyway, we only have two rooms in that hall. Plus, there's a door that shuts the hall off from the rest of the house. It can pretty much block any noise short of a gunshot. And he asked me not to tell about the nightmares...he didn't want anyone to know about it."

The sideways glance told Jarrod that Nick's request had been far more specific: He had not wanted Jarrod to know about it, another knife in the gut.

"I figured-well, that it was something that would go away. That he'd get over it. I mean, Nick's always been so tough, ya know?"

"Tell me about his first nightmare. How did he react to it?" The doctor perched forward, watching Heath carefully.

"Shook him up. Shook him up bad. I hadn't seen anyone react to a dream that way since right after Carterson. Some of the guys got out of prison and started having horrible nightmares. What scared Nick, I think, was that he wasn't sure it was just a dream. When I woke him up he started..." Heath searched for an apt description but couldn't find a kind one. "Babbling. He was sweating so bad he looked like he'd been swimming or something. He was shaking. I asked him if he'd had a nightmare and he said he didn't know. Said it was like a nightmare that wasn't a nightmare. Not like a dream nightmare, more like a real one. He was talking about people screaming and babies crying and about how was supposed to take care of the children..."

"Did he remember the whole incident that night?"

"No," Heath shook his head decisively. "He wasn't sure what it was really. He was only certain that it wasn't just a dream." Heath swallowed painfully. "I think he suspected...he started to say 'Jesus, Heath what if -' but then he just stopped. I think he couldn't bring himself to...finish...the thought."

The Doctor rubbed at his forehead.

"Did he go back to sleep that night?"

"No..well yes..." Heath paused. "Nick tried to but he had the same nightmare again right away. At least I guess it was the same nightmare. Maybe it was worse."

"Did he say it was worse?"

"No. No, he didn't. He just..." Jarrod noticed his brother's blue eyes looked painfully bright.

"He just... kept saying 'Terrible. Terrible.'"

_**bvbvbvbvbv**_

Dr Martin had not wanted Nick left alone, a decision based on a blunt assessment that the patient had come far too close to slashing his wrists for it to be simply co-incidental. Protests that the injury was accidental had been met by the acidic rejoinder that the next such 'accident' would likely conclude with a funeral, ending any opposition. Audra had volunteered for the first shift, and sat by her brother's still form thinking about elephants and camels and dancing bears for Christmas. She ran a damp cloth through Nick's hair, gently cleaning away dried clots of blood.

"Nick? Do you remember that first Christmas after Father died, all the things you did for us, the fireworks, and beehives and that circus you brought home? Remember the bear, Nick? The Dancing bear and the camel and the elephant that you had stomping around in front of the house Christmas morning?"

She rinsed the rag in a basin of water; small specks of red dripped off the rag and dissolved into pinkish stains.

"I couldn't believe it. Jarrod couldn't believe it. He thought you were crazy. Eugene loved it of course. And Mother...it was the first time she laughed since father had died. That whole ridiculous show you brought here just because I said I wanted a circus for Christmas."

Raven hair darkened with moisture; more thick knotted chunks slid out of the strands. Audra dipped the rag in the basin again.

"And those fireworks you gave Jarrod! That box was as tall as you were and twice as wide; and you talked Jarrod into setting them off all at once. It was 3:00 in the morning and you two set off all the fireworks in the world, laughing like children."

The water had turned bright red. Audra wondered if she was doing any good or if the blood would remain caked and clinging to her brother forever.

"There was Eugene and his beehive. I couldn't believe you broke down and set up the beehive and all those bees after you'd argued with him about it all year long. You were so certain that he'd would take care of them for just a few months and then get interested in something else and they'd end up being your problem."

She emptied the basin and poured in clean water from a pitcher; resumed sponging away the blood.

"Sure enough, in two months Eugene was onto another project, and they became a nuisance you had to deal with. I remember how you came in one day covered with bee stings. I kept waiting for you to say 'I told you so' but you never did. You never mentioned it to Eugene. Not once. God, you spent that entire year carrying the two of us on your shoulders."

Audra bit her lip and continued. "Running the ranch, handling business at home, trying to spend time every night with Mother. Spending time every day with me and Eugene. I know Jarrod was grateful; and so proud of you. So was Mother. Did we ever tell you that?"

The rag ran through the strands of hair again. She wanted Alderson's blood off her brother. It sickened her to think of the general's blood mingling with Nick's, as if some evil taint from the general would do even more damage than had been done. If possible.

"That was our first Christmas without Father. It should have been horrible. But when I think of it, I don't remember it as being sad. I remember Fireworks in the night, and elephants in the yard, and bears dancing on the porch."

Once more she performed the soothing, rhythmic motions. Stroke. Rinse. The water turned red.

"Was it a happy Christmas for you, Nick? Do you remember the bear?"

_**BVBVBVBVBV**_

"The real question here, is what are you going to do once he wakes up?"

Maybe it was fatigue or tension, but the Doctor no longer looked quite so young to Jarrod. He noticed circles under his eyes and worry lines on his forehead. It was also possibly his manner, which became increasingly acidic as the night wore on, was adding to the impression of years.

"Why can't we just keep him sleeping for awhile?" Jarrod suggested.

The Dr raised a sardonic eyebrow. "And how long is 'awhile'? A week? A month? Two months? I could do that, but I won't. I sincerely doubt you'll find addiction a long term improvement over melancholy."

"I'm not saying we should hook him on laudenum for the sake of convenience." Jarrod's voice had taken on the stocatto tones they always did when he was angry. "I'm just suggesting if we could stop the nightmares-"

"The nightmares are a symptom, not the problem. Anyone could tell you that." Dr Martin sounded as angry as Jarrod.

"The PROBLEM is over ten years old!" Jarrod was almost scarlet.

"I would say the PROBLEM is that apparently there has been no one in the family he could talk to about this rationally long before it became a half-remembered nightmare that started eating him alive!"

"Dr Martin!" Victoria's voice flashed icy fire.

"Be as angry as you'd like, Mrs Barkley. But tell me this: After that court martial business, did anyone go to Nick and say 'You were badly used and I'm sorry'?"

There was a guilty silence and Dr Martin gave a bitter smile. He picked up his medical bag and paused as he caught Jarrod's eye.

"Just out of curiosity, when Nick discovered you'd set up whole thing, what did he do?"

Jarrod rubbed his cheek where the bruise was fading. "He hit me."

The Doctor raised an eyebrow. "Only once?"

"We'll send someone to ride back with you." Victoria decided.

"Mother, I'll go with him." Heath offered.

"Thank you, Heath." Jarrod sighed. He rarely misjudged people as badly as he had Dr. Martin. He had assumed from his exterior that-despite Heath's assurances-was naive, inexperienced and awkward, and the doctor had turned out entirely too incisive and sharp tongued for comfort. Jarrod prided himself in his ability to 'read' people, and misstepping so badly with Marten made him wonder how often he had misread his family as well.

_**BVBVBVBVBVBVBV**_

Heath was only too happy to escort Dr Martin home. For starters, it gave him a reason for not facing Jarrod at a time when Heath was struggling with an urge strangle his older brother. How a smart man could be so concerned with his family and so careless with it all at the same time was something Heath could not understand.

Heath was also deeply shaken by Nick's condition and needed time to pull himself together before he took a shift to watch over his brother's sleep. Ever since he'd arrived at the ranch, Nick had been a rock...or maybe a better phrase would have been a rock rolling downhill. Decisive, determined, he went all out at a task and wouldn't quit until it was done.

The Barkley ranch tended to be ahead of the curve when it came to diversifying, trying new ideas or taking on new projects. Nick, for all his swaggering dismissal of college, had cultivated a remarkable working relationship with several agricultural professors. On more than one occasion he had supplied them with a few head of cattle or an acre of land here or there to try out their ideas, even loaning them a ranch hand or two periodically.

In return, they kept him up to date on the most recent advances in husbandry, medicine and anything else that he took an interest in. As a result, Nick usually had all the facts he needed to make a decision about the same time the other ranchers in the valley were suspiciously rejecting a new idea for lack of details. And once Nick made up his mind he moved with breakneck speed, often leaving people behind him wondering what was happening.

In this he was helped by the fact that he was the only rancher in the valley who kept all his own books. Heath had heard more than one town person dismiss Nick as a 'not too terribly bright hothead,' a description that had started to annoy Heath no end. He had discovered very early on that Nick knew to the nickle how much the ranch's expenses were, where the money was going out and coming in, and what each change in the market would mean for the overall profitability of the various enterprises.

Shortly after Heath had arrived, they had hired a manager for the orchard operations. A month later, Nick had fired the man insisting that man was either incompetent or a thief; his operating costs were too high. A surprise inspection of the man's office had turned up a practically new set of books, proving he had started embezzling funds shortly after he arrived.

Nick had noticed the inconsistancy so quickly that the man had not yet cleared enough to pay for his subsequent attorney fees. While Heath had been stunned by the pace at which Nick discovered and solved the problem, the rest of the family had been blase almost to the point of indifference.

After several months of observation, Heath had decided the Barkley's were so used to Nick's talents as a foreman that they took them for granted. One reason why Nick and Heath got along so well was Nick's gratification at finally having someone in the family realize exactly what it was that he did and offer to ease the burden.

Heath had worked at enough large ranches to realize that the person who ran it could make or break the operation. As a team, they worked well together with Nick supplying enough energy for any five men and Heath giving him a sounding board, a hand with the books, a patience for tending to the more boring but necessary elements of the job and a willingness to put in as many long hours as Nick did.

Heath had also acted as an occasional buffer between Nick's high-strung nature and his kin. Maybe because Heath was from outside the family, he could observe things with a degree of detachment. Heath had immediately realized that Nick, restless and highly energetic, was often frustrated by what he perceived as his family's almost aggressively slow response to his efforts and ideas.

From Nick's point of view, he wasn't shouting, he was just trying to get their attention. The rest of the Barkley's, led by the more deliberate and thoughtful Jarrod, were baffled by Nick's simmering frustration and often tuned him out making Nick shout all the louder ... On more than one occasion Heath had wanted to roll about on the ground laughing.

Fortunately, Heath's diplomatic half had asserted itself and melded into a working partnership with his brother while gently easing the friction between Nick and the rest of the family. In return Heath had gotten the unwavering support of a brother who had seemed, up until this week, rock solid. Heath had come to depend on that support and it shook him badly to see Nick looking so...broken.

"Doc," Heath finally broke the silence of the ride back to town. "You've seen lots of cases. How bad off is he?"

"As long as we're just treating the symptoms? Bad. Even if he gets functional again, he won't be all right by a long shot. Oh, he might be able to return to work, run the ranch for a while, maybe even a good while. But the problem won't go away, and it'll eat away at him until he's hollow. Just a paper-thin shell walking around that can shatter at any stress. Then he'll slash his wrists, or blow his brains out... or possibly just crawl into the bottom of a bottle and stay there. We had a term for the last one at the hospital. We called it self-medication."

Dr Martin's tone had taken on the bitterly knowing sound Heath remembered from the hospital. Heath was also remembering something else: He'd had almost the exact same conversation with the Dr about his pal Joshie, and Joshie didn't get better.

_**BVBVBVBVBVBVBV**_

_Dear Eugene,_

_I appreciate your offer to come home from school and help, but I would prefer you stay there rather than interrupting your education. I am very proud of the grades my youngest son has been making lately, and I do not believe there is anything here you could do that would help. Honestly, if your last letter is any indication of how angry you are at Jarrod, having you here would only add to the current level of tension in the house; tension that is doing no one any good, least of all Nick._

_Heath is scarcely speaking to Jarrod when they are both in the same room. This rarely occurs anyway since Heath is suddenly running the entire ranch by himself and is absolutely certain he is doing a dreadful job of it. So far I have been unable to convince him that Nick went through the same problems when he first shouldered the burden alone. Heath firmly believes everyone is comparing his efforts to Nick's and finding them lacking. He has been putting in sixteen hour days and is utterly exhausted, especially as he insists on taking a shift protecting Nick every few days._

_Audra spends most of her time with Nick and I fear the strain is draining life out of her as surely as it has her brother. She too, has lost her appetite and, most disturbingly, has begun suffering from nightmares. Dr Martin left her some sleeping powders along with a cryptic remark that he was not too surprised as insanity was contagious._

_I must confess I am finding it very difficult to warm up to him. It is a relief to know your professors at college regard his skills very highly, but I find his manner so abrasive at times that I have considered replacing him as the physician on several occasions. The main thing stopping me is that he handles Nick quite well._

_Dr Martin came by yesterday just as Nick was having a nightmare... one that we could not rouse him from, partly as the result of a fever I believe. The Doctor's solution was to douse your brother in ice cold water, shocking him out of sleep completely._

_Once Nick was awake, Dr Martin spent a considerable amount of time talking to him as he changed the bandages, although I have no idea what they talked about since everyone was banished from the room. So far as I can tell, Dr Martin's reserves whatever good nature he has for his patients and Nick does seem slightly better after the Doctor's visits._

_Jarrod, on the other hand, does not get along with Dr Martin at all. This is scarcely surprising since Dr Martin is as strong willed about his patients as Jarrod is about his clients. The two clash every occasion they meet, which is regrettably often as Jarrod has been home continuously. He has been carrying out his law practice from the study as well as assisting Heath with the bookkeeping. He also insists on taking a four hour shift at night in case Nick needs him..._

Jarrod looked around, thinking that what had been Heath's but was currently Nick's bedroom needed cleaning. Anything that had been laid down and not picked up immediately was still there. The only things that had been removed were the bloody, ruined clothes Nick had been wearing. Jarrod wasn't surprised. Nick had always objected fiercely to anyone coming in and -as he put it- moving his stuff.

Jarrod had started to clean the room this morning only to be stopped by Silas, who had gently pointed out that Nick would notice things had been changed once he woke up.

"He can't even control his dreams, Mr Jarrod." The butler's soft voice had admonished. "Is it asking too much to let him control this room?"

Jarrod had been surprised by the astute observation. It had never occurred to him that his brother's seemingly careless messiness actually had a purpose. Nick surrounded himself with chaos, but at least it was HIS chaos. Jarrod sat down in the chair next to the bed and let his mind wander.

Nick wasn't getting better. Physically he was better, color was back in his face and he was up and around some, but emotionally he was drained, depressed and apathetic. He didn't sleep through the night unless he had a sedative and the Doctor was not going to continue to prescribe the medication for much longer.

It was Dr Martin's educated guess that once Nick was deprived of any form of sedation he would turn to alcohol, drinking himself into a stupor to avoid the nightmares that raged through his sleep. If he was prevented from drinking and the nightmares returned, he would lose sleep, start hallucinating again and likely end up in a hospital.

_God, maybe they should have let Macklin arrest Nick; at least there would have been a trial and the whole truth would have come out._

Jarrod frowned. Now where had THAT thought come from? They already had the truth, Nick had told them what had happened, right? And Nick hadn't lied. Even if he was planning to he wasn't capable of it, so it must be the truth, or at least the truth as he remembered it. Jarrod turned that over in his mind.

"Witnesses can be a pain in the ass." The first lawyer he had interned with had informed him of that fact his very first day. "If there are five different witnesses and you'll hear five different stories. And God help you if you try using your own client as a witness because HE has the worst memory of all. If he thinks he's right his version of events is that he's Percival Pureheart and a walking saint, which the jury will hate. "

'If the client feels even slightly guilty, he'll end up telling a story that assigns himself all the blame and the jury will commence hanging him. If your client insist on being his own witness son, always plead your case out. It's just not worth it."

Jarrod had never subscribed to this particularly cynical theory of law but the old barrister had a point. Why assume Nick would be different from any other witness to a crime? Jarrod got up and searched the room, finally finding his bloodied jacket from the other evening buried under a pile of debris. If he remembered correctly...yes! There it was in an inner pocket: the statement Macklin had written up while talking to Nick, as well as other documentation on the case. Jarrod moved next to Nick again and started reviewing the file, the lawyer part of his mind taking over.

After about an hour of reading, Jarrod put the file down and started playing with the information he had. Like any legal case, this was a puzzle, and Jarrod slid the pieces around in his mind, trying to make them fit. Nick freezing, Mayville, Robert Batson strolling up to shoot the children... it didn't add up. Jarrod flipped back to the pencil covered page where Macklin had scribbled notes while Nick was talking and re-read the statement which, surprisingly, was almost word for word of what Jarrod remembered Nick saying.

Certain things... little things but troubling...weren't making sense. First, and most important was Nick's description of his actions. He claimed he froze, had just watched as the children were murdered. Wrong. Jarrod knew his brother well and could not imagine any circumstances under which Nick would passively stand by and watch two people murdered. Nick reacted to action with more action, and it was impossible to believe that he would have stopped trying to get to the woman and her children to help.

Secondly, Nick said there was someone else. In fact, Jarrod skimmed to the exact spot...he'd said there was more than one...there were people trying to hide from Batson but Nick had not mentioned what happened to them.

Jarrod reviewed the other papers Macklin had given him, looking for information on any witnesses which, despite the opinion of his curmudgeonly mentor, often provided a valuable insight on events What he found was disappointing. Macklin had interviewed a single witness to the shooting who had insisted she saw nothing. The witness in questions was the sibling of the children Batson killed which was the only reason why her name was even in the file. She had apparently never left Mayville.

Jarrod sat there and let his legal persona sift the information. Alright, Nick says there were other people there; they must have seen something. Macklin interviewed a single witness who said she saw nothing. But from the age of the witness she would have been around twelve or thirteen at the time...old enough to understand that speaking up could be dangerous. That could explain why she said nothing then. Why would she continue to this day to insist she had seen nothing that night? A remembered conversation he'd had with a disgusted Macklin provided the answer.

"Ghosts." Macklin had said. "There are groups of men dressing up in white sheets pretending to be ghosts roaming the countryside down there."

"What on earth for?" Jarrod had been fascinated.

"It's a way to keep the ex-slaves in line. These crackers claim ex-slaves are deeply superstitious and regard the sheet wearing bands of men as wandering bands of ghosts. If an ex-slave is showing too much independence a group of ghosts will show up at night and burn down the house or beat the poor man or his family... It makes getting statements absolutely hell."

Jarrod had privately thought that anyone who genuinely believed putting on a sheet would convince everyone else they were seeing a ghost had to be one of the dumbest people on earth. Wearing a sheet would, however, be an effective way of keeping one's identity secret.

So...assume that Mayville had its own share of 'ghosts,' and this woman - he skimmed the page to find her name again - Angela Woodard - was fearful that talking to anyone about what she saw would bring a visit by the nightriders. That would be a very good reason not to talk ... as long as she was in Mayville.

For the first time in a week Jarrod felt better. He was no longer reacting helplessly, no longer sitting passively by while his brother was pulled apart. He had a plan.

BVBVBVBVBV

"Miss Woodard?"

The woman standing inside the shabby door was carefully keeping herself to the shadows .. and blocking the entrance, Jarrod noticed. There was a whimper from inside and woman glanced back at the noise.

"Angela Woodard?" The shadow shifted slightly.

"Yessah."

Jarrod could see the fingers holding onto the door tighten nervously.

"My name is Jarrod Barkley. I'm an attorney from California." He offered his card and she eyed it warily.

"Ah neva been ta California."

"Yes ma'am. May I come in?" Wrong question, he knew it immediately as the woman tensed up. "Never mind, I'll just stay here on the porch. We can just talk through the door if you'd like."

The woman's eyes cast beyond him into the street as if looking for something, and when the road stayed empty she relaxed slightly.

"Ya need someone ta do ya laundry?"

"No ma'am. I was hoping I could talk to you about the massacre that happened here during the Civil War."

The woman stepped back into the shadows again and he realized he was losing her.

"I'd be willing to pay you for your time. I know you have work to do."

He pulled a gold eagle out of his pocket and offered it. She made no move to take it and he wondered if she was afraid to get that close to him. He placed it on a shelf by the door and stepped back slightly.

"Ah din't see nothin' that night."

Jarrod gently cleared his throat.

"According to my brother you did; you had to have. He said you were right under that oak over there when your family was killed."

The door started to shut and Jarrod blocked it with his foot.

"Mrs Woodard, please! My brother was there that night. He killed a man who murdered two children, but he doesn't remember exactly what happened. He thinks it's his fault your family was killed, that he just stood there and let it happen."

She stopped pressing on the door.

"Mrs. Woodard, I'm losing my brother to a half-remembered nightmare. My little brother ... I don't want to lose him to Mayville."

She looked at him intently.

"They was ma lil' brothers." She said softly. "That man kilt ma lil' brothers that night." She studied his face for a moment. "Yah brother, he was tha' boy Lt, wan't he?"

Jarrod nodded. "He said it was his fault. He said he just stood by while they were murdered. It's killing him."

She shook her head slowly.

"Tha' ain't what happen'd."

He followed her gaze to the large tree down the street.

"Ah think tha' night'll neva be over." She met his eyes for the first time and slowly opened the door. "Maybe ya'd better come inside.

_**BVBVBVBVBV**_

Heath was waiting impatiently at the train station for Jarrod. When he had received the telegram asking him to be at the station his initial response had been to suggest Jarrod could walk home. He had swallowed it at Victoria's request. She felt the strain in the household was hard on Nick when he didn't need any additional complications and had asked Heath to bury the hatchet. After a brief moment of uncharitably thinking he'd like to bury it in Jarrod's neck, Heath had grudgingly agreed, for Nick's sake.

Even getting past that, Heath still resented being dragged to town when there was so much work to be done around the ranch. He was somewhat embarrassed, since he had firmly believed that he had been shouldering a good half of the burden of running the ranch only to discover in the last few weeks that Nick had been allowing him to take up his share very slowly. Heath had not realized what a careful, patient teacher Nick was, never allowing Heath to do more than he was able to, never letting him realize how much he still had to learn.

"Nick probably figgured if he let on how far I had to go, I'da been too overwhelmed to learn a blamed thing. I'm not sure but what he wasn't right."

Heath glanced at his watch again, wishing the train would hurry up. He couldn't see why Jarrod was in such a big rush to back to the ranch, seeing how he'd taken the worse possibly moment to high himself off to parts unknown with scarcely an explanation. That had sat poorly with the whole family. Eugene's latest letter had been nearly incoherent with rage and Heath didn't blame him one bit. Heath was starting to wonder if the brother he thought he'd known ever existed.

A distant whistle interrupted his mental grousing and he struggled to put on an expression that was, if not welcoming, at least neutral. He watched the train pull slowly into the station and promised himself that when - if - Nick was okay again, Heath would take Jarrod someplace private and pummel him but good.

"Boy howdy, I'm getting as hot-headed as Nick. Maybe it's the stress of running the ranch that makes him so touchy sometimes."

The train stopped, and after a moment Jarrod stepped onto the platform and offered his hand up to help someone step down. It was a black woman carrying a baby, and Heath took in the dark features with surprise. Evidently, she was with Jarrod, and Heath wondered why the two were traveling together.

"Heath!" Jarrod waved him over, and Heath noticed to his annoyance that the lawyer seemed pleased. "I'd like you to meet Miss Angela Woodard. Miss Woodard, this is my brother Heath."

Heath was disconcerted by the intensity of the woman's gaze as she stared at him for a moment before turning back to Jarrod with a slightly disappointed expression.

"It ain't him."

"No Ma'am. It's my brother Nick we need to talk to. Heath, how's he doing?"

"He's getting outside but only when we push him. Otherwise he just sIts around. It's spooky, you know? Like Nick's gone and this shell has been left behind. It looks like Nick, but ain't nobody home."

Jarrod nodded. "Angela, let's get you back to the ranch." He gave her a pleading look. "I know you're tired but..."

"Ah unnerstan'." she answered, shifting the basket holding her baby to her other arm.

"Would you like me to take that for you Ma'am?" Heath offered.

She pulled back and Jarrod shook his head. Heath understood instantly. This was her child and she had no intention of placing it in the arms of someone she didn't ... couldn't trust.

"Ah have her."

Heath led them both to the buggy and helped Ms Woodard get in the back, then grabbed Jarrod's arm before his brother could climb into the front.

"Jarrod, what is all this about?"

"She was at Mayville Heath. She saw what really happened."

Heath's eyes widened. "You think she can help Nick?"

Jarrod nodded gravely. "I think so. I think she can help him a lot."

Heath felt a smile stretching his face.

"Well, boy howdy, let's get her home."

_**BVBVBVBVBVBV**_

Nick sat in the garden, wishing everyone would just leave him alone. He felt as if a gaggle of well-meaning relatives had been surgically attached to his side and were steadily driving away whatever sanity he had left. Audra, for example had wandered over exactly as he was thinking he had humored everyone long enough and could go back to bed, only to have her seize his arm and drag him into the garden where she prattled endlessly on about the flowers.

"Just as well." he supposed. If he went up to bed he'd just lie there thinking of different ways to avoid sleeping. The Doctor had stopped the sedatives and the nightmares were returning with a vengeance. He had spent the last night with his eyes tightly shut as he repeatedly jabbed at the deepest cut on his hands to avoid falling asleep. Audra may have been fooled but Victoria wasn't, particularly when she saw the blood staining the sheets and noticed the torn stitches in the morning.

Nick was aware he was causing his mother -hell the whole family- pain, but much to his disgust couldn't seem to care. He felt like he was drowning in a sea of guilt and despair, and he didn't have enough energy to keep himself afloat, much less help someone else. In his more contemplative moments, he was appalled at his selfishness but that only added to his self-loathing. Not for the first time Nick wished he had died at Mayville, died during the war, died at the guns of the railroads hired thugs rather than his father.

Audra was looking at him expectantly and he realized she was waiting for an answer to a question.

"Yeah Audra, sure. Sounds great."

Her eyes clouded with hurt and he knew with a sort of dull dismay that he had bungled again. Another stroke against him in his mental tally sheet of faults and he decided to retreat to his room.

"Nick?" It was his mother, must be time for them to swap off. "Jarrod's back. Could you come to the study for a few minutes?"

At least she was giving him a graceful exit.

"Coming Mother."

He focused on heaving himself to his feet and moving his stiff body inside. He could see Jarrod and Heath standing there with a poorly dressed black woman. She was clutching a basket with a baby inside and Nick wondered tiredly what on earth was going on now.

"Hey Jarrod. Glad you're back. I think I'm going to bed."

Jarrod shook his head firmly and Heath walked over to close the door.

"We need to talk first." Nick recognized the steely edge in his brother's voice. It was his 'I'm the oldest brother and we're doing this my way' voice.

"I don't want to talk Jarrod. Can't this wait?"

"No it can't. Sit down, Nick. I want you to meet Angela Woodard. Angela, this is my brother Nick."

If he was supposed to remember the name, he drew an embarrassing blank as he politely nodded to her.

"Miss Woodard."

Brown eyes met his and he had the disconcerting feeling they had met before and he simply didn't recall.

"Mr Barkley."

The acccent was familiar anyway, he'd heard it every day while he was in the army and had fallen in love with the dulcet tones of southern speech. He wasn't the only one either; many a young union soldier had started trying to imitate the slow-moving drawl. Nick had taken his troopers carefully practiced southern accents as the final absurdity that elevated the war from tragic farce to insanity. Damn, his mind was wandering again. He pulled his meandering thoughts back to the woman in front of him, felt again that faint twinge of recollection he couldn't place.

"I know you from somewhere."

She nodded. "Ah was at Mayville. Ma family lived there. Ma sisters and ma brothers, me 'n Mama. We was there that night."

Nick dropped his eyes and his shoulders sagged as guilt dug claws into his chest. Angela took in the lank hair and haggard face.

"Ya brother was right. Ya don' remember what happen'd, do ya?"

"I remember." God, why had Jarrod brought her here?

She shook her head. "No, ya don'. Now ya lissen here, Ah'm gonna tell ya what Ah saw."

She lowered the basket on her arm gently to the floor as she sat on the far edge of her chair and Nick slowly lowered himself into the opposite one. He wanted to run, he wanted to hide his head for shame and beg for forgiveness, but his breath was stuck in his throat and he couldn't speak. He could only listen.

"Ah don' know how it start'd, we jus' heard screamin', an gunshots. We knew it was trouble. If white folks had trouble, then black folks woul' get it fo times more. Jus' how it was. Wadn' nothin' we could do but try ta wait it out, hope it wouldn' get too bad. It got all quiet, we thought maybe it'd pass'd us by. Then we heard footsteps an' someone kicked open tha door. It was a bluecoat. He had cruel eyes, crazy eyes. He grabbed ma Mama an' threw her down. She start'd screamin' fer us ta run. So we did, me an' ma sisters. We run out the front door..." She bit her lip and tears spilled down her face. "We was so scared. We forgot about ma baby brothers in tha crib. Too scared to go back in the house and get 'em. Jus'...hidin' under that tree n' hopin' nobody'd see us. We could hear Mama screamin' and that soljer laughin' like it was all a game. Maybe it was ta him."

Nick felt sick. What had he been doing while the woman had been raped and the children terrorized? Probably wandering stupidly down some street hunting for a General who had already left the scene. _Nice going, Lt._

"Then he came out, threw somethin' back inside and tha house start'd burnin'. Ah saw 'im...make a torch n' head out ta tha barn. That was when Ah heard ya shoutin'. Ya was runnin' to tha house but ya stumbled into tha mud pit in the road. It was sticky mud." Her eyes took on a distant look for a moment. "That mud ditch been there long as tha town had been. Folks lived there knew 'bout it. Strangers like ya couldn' know. Didn' know how it baked all day an' got wet again all night. Didn' know folks wouldn' take horses through it 'cause they'd get stuck. Jus' didn' know."

Nick could feel his family around him, his Mother and his sister choked with horror, Heath, sad but knowing. Jarrod simply waiting...for what? Nick didn't care. He just wanted to get this over with and he turned his attention back to the softly drawling figure in front of him.

"Mama run outta tha house; she was carryin' my baby brothers n' headin' fer us by th' tree. Ya started shoutin', sayin' people needed help, still tryin' to get through that ditch an' havin mud up to ya knees. Ah heard a shot. Mama fell down, droppin' ma brothers an' Ah knew she was dead, 'cause she wouldna dropped ma brothers unless she'd been dead.

Ah saw that man walkin' up again. Ya was shoutin' at him, tellin' him to turn around or ya'd shoot but he didn' take no notice. He jus' kept walkin'...like he had all tha time in tha world. Like he was goin' to church on a Sunday mornin'. He looked so happy. Ya was pointin' the gun at him, tellin' him ya'd shoot. Then ya was pullin' the trigger but nothin' happened. Ah saw ya tryin' ta clean -"

"Mud." The blurred memory started to focus. "There was mud and it wouldn't fire. I was trying to clean off the mud so it would fire.."

_fingers fumbling wildly as he tore off bits of clothes to wipe the hammer clear away the mud while he screamed at Batson to stop to stand down get away from there it was an order finally dropping the service revolver in the mud and reaching inside his shirt for the battered pistol he carried as a last ditch weapon old and ugly and stiff but dry and workable_

"Mud." She nodded. "Ya' was shoutin' at him ta stop but Ah could see his face. He din't care. He was havin' fun...he was laughin bad, makin' this squealin' giiggle like a pig makes." She looked at Nick sadly. "It scared ma' baby brothers, tha' laugh. They was cryin'. Ah saw ya' drop yer gun an run towards Mama, ya was pullin' a pistol from yer shirt an loadin' it and shoutin' at that crazy man. Ya' was still loadin' it when he killed ma brothers." She shuddered at the memory and Nick felt his stomach roll with nausea. "Then he started walkin' to me, ma sisters, n' Ah knew he was gonna kill us, too. Wad'n nuthin' to him. We was fleas. Laughin' that laugh, him pointin' that gun in ma face. An that was when ya shot 'im. An ya' shot 'im an ya shot 'im."

Nick nodded slowly, tiny pieces of memory falling into place.

"Ya was cryin'. Ya' picked up ma little brothers and ya' was cryin'. Ya' was askin' 'em not to die." Angela looked at him with remembered amazement. "Ah never saw no white man cryin' over black babies before. I allas thought white men was one a God's dangers, but ya were standin' there an'cryin'..."

Despair and guilt rose again and his eyes blurred with tears. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

_I'm sorry I failed._ He wanted to say. _Sorry I didn't - couldn't stop Batson. Sorry for the burning house and the screaming mother and the babies bleeding in the mud._

But the words couldn't come and they were meaningless and useless. As useless as he'd been that night. A hand touched his arm and he looked up into her eyes, searching for hate and anger, for blame and rage.

"Ya' did th' best ya' could." The forgiving words rolled over him in a gentle wave. "Ya' did more'n anyone else. Ya stopped him. Ya' kept that man from hurtin' us more. Ya' cried for ma brother's jus like ma Daddy or ma Mama woulda done. It wad'n yer fault."

The knot around his heart loosened for a moment, then tightened with grief and to his shame he felt tears running down his face.

"But the babies- I didn't save... those poor babies."

He felt her fingers tighten on his arm, pulling insistently.

"Ah want ya to see somethin'." She reached into the basket on the floor and lifted out her daughter, held the girl up so he could see the tiny form. "This is ma daughter. Her name is Jordan." The child gave a wordless giggle. "If ya hadn' been there that night, she wouldn' be here today. Maybe Ya' couldn' save those babies. Ya saved this one."

He brushed the blinding tears from his eyes, and for the first time in a long while, a child's face that didn't spring from nightmares filled his gaze. The youngster in turn watched him with fearless fascination. A cold, painful knot in his chest was slowly dissolving.

_I didn't just watch. I wasn't able to stop him but at least I tried. She saw what happened and she doesn't blame me._

Two small lives gone; the pain was still there but it was bearable as he drank in the sight of the tiny life he was responsible for in a way. He hesitated. He didn't have the right to ask, but he needed to.

"May I hold her?"

Angelia Woodard nodded shyly, and placed the baby in his arms. Nick pulled her close, felt the girl's milky breath on his cheek, heard bubbling, contented gurgles. He studied the perfection of her small fingers and tiny little fingernails. There were ten; he counted them carefully and turned his attention to counting her toes. Jordan cooed and giggled in delight at his undivided attention, waving her hands and catching the edge of the rough blanket. His finger tenderly traced the contours of her face and around her lashes.

"She has beautiful eyes." He whispered, and pulled her even closer, listening to her breathe, to her heart beating against his chest.

The rhythym of life.

_**BVBVBVBVBV**_

"Jarrod?"

"Yes, brother Nick?"

"Do you really think Angela will stay? Her and Jordan?"

"Hard to know little brother. Silas could use the help, and she didn't have anything to go back to in Mayville."

Jarrod turned the light by the bed off, hoping to encourage Nick to fall asleep. Tonight he had protested swallowing his medication, complaining the powders made him drowsy and were probably just making him sick; a gripe that did much to relieve the family tension. It was the first flash of his usual fire that had been seen in weeks. Of course, taking his medicine also meant he'd had to return Jordan to her mother arms, another reason to protest. Jarrod strongly suspected if Angela and Jordan stayed on, the baby would never learn how to walk. For a moment Jarrod thought Nick had fallen asleep, then:

"Jarrod?"

"Get some sleep, Nick."

"Why'd ja go looking for Angela?"

"Because I thought she might know the truth about what really happened that night."

"You didn't think I was telling the truth?" Jarrod noticed with relief that Nick didn't sound angry, just curious.

"I didn't think you knew what the truth really was." Jarrod was determined to be absolutely honest. "What you were telling us had holes and gaps that didn't make sense. I knew Alderson wouldn't tell the truth. What you told us came partly out of nightmares, memories that hurt you so badly you tried not to remember. What you were describing didn't match my brother. I know my brother, and I knew some part of the story was missing."

"How'd ja know it wouldn't be something bad?"

"I know my brother." Jarrod repeated. Nick blinked drowsily, almost asleep. "The brother I know wouldn't have just stood there and watched. I knew that with all my heart. I just had to find proof. Not for me, little brother, but for you."

A long silence, then in the last sigh before sleep,

"..anks, Pappy."

Deep regular breaths filled the room, and Jarrod leaned back against his chair. He had insisted on staying the entire night, and not just a four hour shift. If anything happened, he was going to be there. For an hour Jarrod studied his brother's face in the moonlight, noting that for the first time in weeks the strained, hollow look was gone and the sleep was peaceful and unmarred.

"My little brother." The thought brought a tide of protectiveness with it, and he reached down and stroked the soft raven hair with a gentle hand. "Sweet dreams, Nick. Nothing but sweet dreams. Pappy says so."

**BVBVBVBVBVBVBV**

_He was seven, almost eight as he walked into his parents room to meet his new sibling. Victoria gestured for him to approach the bed, then carefully gathered the blanket wrapped infant and placed it in his arms for the very first time. He accepted the child and the responsibility laid on him joyfully, standing as tall as he possibly could._

_"Take care of your little sister, Nick."_


End file.
